


Oneirophobia

by AdmiralGodunov



Category: Zero | Project Zero | Fatal Frame Series
Genre: AU, Also characters that had creepy obsessions with their sisters before will still have them, Alternate Universe, Angst, Environmental/Psychological Horror, Gen, Ghosts, Implied Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 57,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1739054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdmiralGodunov/pseuds/AdmiralGodunov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleep, priestess, lie in peace. Dream the dreams of the unknown, and try not to wake up screaming.</p><p>Three spirit mediums, two priestesses, a girl prone to possession, a handful of people desperately seeking the truth, and the nightmares that bind them all together. In a modern AU of Fatal Frame, the worst ghosts are the ones who live in their own minds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kirie

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies, but the story is going to go on a short hiatus. Once things are back in order, it will be back to a Monday update release schedule.

**Himuro Mansion**

Kirie Himuro kept her hands before her, and her head down as the other woman led her through the long hallways and passageways of her family's ancestral home. Around her, the sounds of the housekeepers and other attendants of the house moved to and fro, and occasionally giggling children ran past her and down the hall, though they peeled to the left at the great mirror and went toward the Great Hall as they played. There were always many people at the Himuro Mansion; their family was expansive, and an old family as well. The Himuro family progenitor was one of the earliest landowners of the area. The Himuro Mansion was still the main family house, and so there were always relatives of some kind or another visiting the massive property. Even though the surrounding lands were tranquil and serene, there was never a dull moment at the Himuro Mansion.

It was April, and in one week, Kirie would be starting school again; starting her third and final year. When the next year's spring came around, she would graduate and be on her way toward...

Well, her future wasn't so certain. In many ways, she wanted to strike out on her own, see more of the world outside of the big manor of her family's property; go to college, get a career, meet more people. At the same time, she had been chosen as a child to be the successor to the shrine, and had to bear that in mind; though her father was not so old yet that she needed to take things over, and she had, she prayed at least, plenty of years to see the world as she wanted to see it before her father would need to step down. She had spent most of her life in the tiny mountain community that surrounded her family's home, learning how to run the shrine, to communicate with the other nearby shrines, to keep the connections forged that her family held with all the other landowners in the area, and also to all the residents of the community, and that was all on top of her other schooling.

When she had been given the chance to go to a private boarding high school out in the city, feeling stifled as she had - as though in a cage for her whole life - she had jumped at the chance, and her pleading had not gone unheard. Normally, the next chosen Himuro would not be allowed to go so far, and would be required to stay and study her duties, but her father was sympathetic, and she was insistent. She wouldn't tell him there were other reasons she wanted to leave, and about the dreams of death and destruction she had been having before she left for high school.

Unfortunately, leaving the house did nothing to alleviate the visions. They scared her to her core, and coming home made her feel, more and more, that they would be coming to fruition. Perhaps not this time she was there, but soon.

She climbed the familiar stairs and went into the study, to find her father mumbling something to himself over the books kept in the back room. The housekeeper, bustling ahead of her with a pot and cups for tea - something the older housekeeper insisted on doing, even though it wasn't technically a part of her job - set the tray on the table then turned and left as soon as Kirie stepped through the threshold, closing the door with only a soft scrape as it slid shut. Without another word, Kirie sat at the table in the center of the room, and glanced to where the doors to the small balcony were ajar to allow some fresh air into the stuffy upstairs room. The partition normally on the far side of the room was pushed up against the wall, making the room feel larger. The warm golden glow of the early evening sun was distracting, and Kirie didn't notice her father returning to the room until he crossed her field of view on his way to sitting across from her.

"You are looking well, Kirie," her father stated, interrupting her thought process.

"I am well, father," she replied, and bowed her head to him. She reached to serve the tea, as she was used to. "Thank you for having me home."

Kirie was interrupted by her father raising a hand, and shaking his head. "I'll pour this time. How has Tokyo been?"

She couldn't help the excitement, and she looked up, suddenly, smiling from ear to ear. "Oh, father, it is wonderful! There are so many wonderful people, and all the sights are so different!"

What Kirie did not miss, however, was the strained smile her father gave at the news - as though he wanted to be happy for her, but a part of himself just couldn't do it. She faltered a little bit, sinking down under the weight of that realization.

"You're really happy out there, aren't you?" he finally said after a moment, and couldn't look at her, so he took a sip of his tea instead.

Kirie tilted her head, and leaned forward a bit. "Is something wrong?" She had a hunch - she was becoming too used to the outside life, and all of their family traditions dictated that she shouldn't even be allowed out of the town in the first place. That was a tradition already long since broken.

"No... not as such," his lips pressed together as he lowered his cup. "Just remember what I said."

"I know, father," she nodded. It had been his one firm, never wavering condition of her being allowed out of the town; she was not allowed to become involved with any boys. To her, it had seemed a normal request from a strict father, and so she had done her utmost to ensure such a thing never came to pass, because she preferred the other freedoms, and didn't want to betray his trust.

Though she had to admit it was a bit difficult sometimes.

His look relaxed a bit, but he remained pensive about something, and Kirie found the question jumping to her tongue, but there it died as she couldn't figure out how to phrase it, suddenly.

"There have been more earthquakes out this way lately," he said, suddenly, and Kirie frowned, still pondering how to ask her question, and just like that, forgot it at all.

"Really? I didn't hear anything at all in town... was anyone hurt?"

"Luckily, no. Hopefully, people will stay cautious until we're sure they are over," he sipped his tea as he fell quiet. Finally, after a moment of savoring the liquid, he continued as though he hadn't paused in the first place. "The mirrors remain."

Kirie smiled at that, and looked honestly relieved. It was probably just an old superstition, but the Himuro Mansion was a supposed focal point for energy from the surrounding shrines. In each shrine was a mirror, with the four surrounding shrines converging their energies toward the one mirror underground in the Himuro Mansion, under the Moon Shrine. It was said there was a great evil that was being kept at bay by the mirror, but Kirie had never experienced it; the scariest thing she had experienced the few times she had visited the supposed "Hell Gate" beneath the family's abode had been manifestations of her own imagination from the _name_ "Hell Gate". Of course, it was the same reaction she had to the Demon Mouth beneath the other library in the house. Still, she was relieved that everything seemed to be in order; she didn't want their house cursed with bad luck should the supposed energy flow from the other mirrors be broken.

"Good," she finally said, after the silence stretched on for a moment too long, and made her feel like squirming. Her father was something of an intimidating man, and it was difficult to talk to him sometimes. Besides, the mirrors being unharmed meant there was less chance her father would call her to her shrine maiden duty.

They sat in a stiff sort of silence for a few moments after that, and it seemed it would stretch on for quite some time, when a soft knock at the rice paper sliding door behind them interrupted the terse silence, and Kirie visibly jumped at the noise.

"Yes?" Her father called, and the door slid open with a soft scrape.

"Lord Himuro," the housekeeper bowed as she stepped in - it was the same woman that had brought the tea up to the study ahead of Kirie. "Your guests have arrived; I apologize for bothering you, but they're early."

"Ah, thank you," he nodded, and the housekeeper disappeared out the door, leaving it ajar for the family head to exit after her. Kirie's father stood from his spot, and nodded again at his daughter. "We can speak more about how your last year went. I must attend to these guests."

Kirie nodded, stiffly, and stared at the teapot as her father left the room, trying not to meet his gaze. She was curious, truly, but as awkward as things had just been, she didn't want to try to follow her father down to greet their guests. Instead, she focused on sipping the last of her tea and watching the clouds slowly turn from bright gold and orange to darker reds and purples as the sun continued to set. Finally, after the housekeeper had taken the tea from the table and the deep reds and purples of the sky indicated the sun would be but a sliver on the horizon, Kirie stood with a sigh, preparing to return to her room. However, as she did, the sound of one of the downstairs doors sliding open, followed by a curious silence caught her attention. She stood, and walked to the door to the balcony and opened it, just in time to see a young man pause by the cherry tree in the atrium. He had a camera on a strap around his neck that he picked up and focused through the lens into the branches of the tree, likely to take a picture of the early pink blossoms. However, just as he was about to snap a picture he stopped, and lowered the camera, looking beyond it and up to the balcony where Kirie stood.

The young priestess felt a hot, embarrassed flush wash over her as he did, as she realized she was in the way of his picture. Or at least, that's what she told herself as she bowed quickly and ducked back into the house, snapping the doors shut behind her.

* * *

The next day, Kirie woke early - normally a blasphemous thing to happen on the first real day of the short spring break, but she did know that the visitors from the previous night were staying the night in the expansive manor, and she wanted a chance to meet them. It was her duty, after all, but at the same time, she wanted to meet the young man she had seen the previous day.

She had her chance at breakfast, as the large, bustling family table was served their morning rice and vegetables. Her father sat at his usual place at one end of the table, and flanking him on either side were four guests; an older man, two younger men, and a woman. The younger children couldn't help their curious gazes and giggles, and Kirie felt a little guilt that she was just as curious as them, though she did manage not to make her interest obvious.

Especially not at the one younger man that sat just across and a two people down from Kirie. Just by overhearing the older man speak to her father, and the excited chattering of the children, she had come to deduce that the group were folklorists, out in the mountainous regions of Japan researching old ghost stories and religious practices. They were visiting the Himuro Mansion to learn more about the mirrors and the supposed "Hell Gate" beneath the house.

Kirie thought she had heard of the folklorist before - "Takamine" sounded very familiar to her somehow, but she couldn't recall where she had last seen the name. Of the other three, one of the young men was his editor, the woman was his assistant, and the youngest man, the one that had caught Kirie's eye the previous day, was his protégé - or something like it, at least. The young man seemed a bit flustered whenever someone would call him as such, citing instead that he was just another assistant and that he was paying Mr. Takamine back for a previous kindness. Kirie mentally filed the knowledge away so as not to bring up anything in later conversation that would embarrass him.

The rest of the day, Kirie spent in a sort of distracted trance, working her way around the house, but really she was just going through the motions. One of the aunts that Kirie was closer to and her family were visiting, so the future priestess spent some time with them, but even still, she found herself wondering when she could stop to talk to the youngest assistant to the folklorist. Conversation was short and distracted; enough so that several times Kirie's aunt and even one of her cousins inquired about her health.

Finally, Kirie received her chance in the late afternoon. It seemed the young man - and Kirie had learned his name to be Mafuyu Hinasaki from her youngest sister - had stepped out to the atrium, likely to escape the multitudes of questions and greetings he had received from the Himuro family so far. The family didn't get many visitors, after all; usually just patrons during certain holidays or times of year visiting the shrine from the nearby village or surrounding areas. It was very rare they were visited by someone from the city. Even those of the family that lived in the city normally seemed bursting with curiosity about the outsiders.

The atrium was quiet during the midmorning. Kirie's father and the other priests were up the hill at the moment, cleaning and tending to the Narukami Shrine. The children were out in the woods exploring and playing their games of hide and seek and tag, while the adults would likely be relaxing and enjoying the break elsewhere. She knew she should be at the shrine, but she didn't feel like wearing her hakama at the moment, and what was more, she had a chance to talk to the stranger. She was not about to let it pass her.

She took a glance at her reflection in the mirror at the corner of the room where the stairs to the second floor landed, ensuring that she looked properly like a lady of the household greeting her guests, and then stepped out into the atrium.

As he had the previous day, Mafuyu was focusing his camera up into the branches of the large cherry tree on the eastern wall of the open space. Quietly, but not so quietly to startle him, Kirie made her way out and down the stairs, onto the path. The camera he held gave a soft click, and he straightened up from his slightly hunched over pose to look at who was joining him.

Kirie was almost certain that young man's smile could melt even the coldest ice. It certainly seemed to work on her.

"Ah, hello Miss Himuro," Mafuyu said, speaking first, and bowed to the young woman. Kirie felt herself smiling broadly in response, and bowed in return. He continued as he stood back up. "I'm sorry, but your tree is very beautiful. I felt I needed to take a picture of it."

"That's alright," Kirie quickly assured, perhaps a little too quickly, but she felt a quickening of her heart rate, and it sped up the rest of her with it. "And I'm sorry for getting in the way yesterday, as well. How has your stay been so far?"

"Comfortable. I can't thank your family enough for being so hospitable to us while we're here," he replied, and he looked so genuinely grateful that it took the young Himuro by surprise. Was it so odd that people be so friendly? She hadn't thought the people of the city to be so rude before. Busy, yes, likely without much time for charity as they bustled to and fro, but rude, she hadn't really seen.

Of course, she smiled graciously as soon as her composure returned, and bowed in thanks. "Of course. We don't get many visitors that aren't family out here, so it's a special occasion when they do arrive."

He smiled, and it was a brilliant, beautiful smile that Kirie couldn't help but feel herself blush in response to. She ducked her head a bit, letting her long black hair fall over her face to partially obscure it. Not only was she embarrassed that the young man had made such an impression on her, but she was failing at her duty to be the next house head, and she wasn't sure which was worse.

Finally, he interrupted the tense silence with a soft laugh, and it brought Kirie's attention directly back to him. The laughter proved to be contagious, however, and a moment later they were both chuckling at their own awkward faux pas. Conversation seemed to come easier after that, but it remained mostly smalltalk. Kirie learned that Mafuyu was a college student, and that he had a younger sister that was actually Kirie's age. What was more, was the other girl went to school near Kirie's high school. She didn't ask, but from the way he spoke, she deduced that he and his sister were probably their only family, and with he being the eldest, it was up to him to provide for the both of them, at least until his sister was able to.

After some time, the silence came again, and the two parted ways. The visitors would be leaving the next morning, Kirie had discovered, but she had no real more reason to speak to the young man, and her father's advice about boys niggled at the back of her mind until she felt guilty enough to not pursue things further down that route.

The next morning, she watched as the quartet of researchers bid cheerful goodbyes, packed up into an older, silver hatchback, and disappeared off into the woods. The shrine maiden felt a pang in her chest as the car disappeared around a bend, and sighed.

Her father, lingering behind, but near her, noticed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oneirophobia - the fear of dreams or dreaming.
> 
> So everyone remembers Pavor Nocturnis? Sort of bouncing off that, in a way. To be most precise, Pavor Nocturnis can be read as a sort of introduction to this one, though I may change some of the smaller details. So hold on, we're in for a wild ride.


	2. Miku

**Tokyo - Jinbouchou  
**

Miku Hinasaki craned her head back, staring up one of the buildings near her toward a giant flat sign proclaiming one of the many publishing companies in the heart of Tokyo. She rarely was able to visit the posh shopping districts in Tokyo; Mr. Takamine's employment ensured that the siblings were never in danger of being homeless or going hungry, but more flippant luxuries were few and far between, and they lived a modest life. Jinbouchou, however, was a bit closer to her price range, as the district was full of antique shops, used book stores, and places where strange curios could be purchased, usually for far cheaper than anywhere else in Tokyo.

Miku venturing out into the crowded, public streets was a rare occurrence on its own. She was always the quiet sort; after their mother had passed away, she had become withdrawn and rarely talked to anyone outside of her brother. It took many years after their mother's death before Miku broke out of her shell enough to seek out friends again, but even still, she made so few friends and passed on so many events that they fell out of contact after a while and she was alone again. She didn't like crowded places - it made the inside of her head feel like something was echoing in it, and she just didn't prefer the noise and bustle, besides. Sometimes she wondered if that was why she had taken up photography as a hobby. Few people questioned someone who preferred to stand at the back of crowds, so long as they had a camera around their neck and a look like they were just waiting for the right moment to snap a shot.

Perhaps it was a good thing that she rarely got the chance to go out, she thought. Miku walked silently down the avenue, and had to pause next to a camera shop. Just inside the window, she could see the best deals of the week, and one camera in a locked glass box that held a price tag she didn't even deign to think about. The accessories are what caught her attention, however. Her brother had her camera at the moment, as she had loaned it to him while he was out on assignment into the mountains, so shopping for another lens was out of the picture, but she always did like just looking.

Absently, Miku stepped away from the window toward the door just as a young couple bustled through, and the small woman was nearly run over wholesale by a taller, busier one, animatedly talking to the man next to her. The other woman exclaimed in surprise, and jerked to the side to prevent the camera that hung around her neck from being caught in the middle of the collision.

"Oh!" Miku stumbled back a step in rebound from their impact with each other, and just as quickly as she regained her balance, bowed her head. "I am so sorry! I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."

"Oh no, that was me, I'm sorry," the other woman said, and they were both caught between their fervid apologies and bows so quickly that after a moment, the other woman stood upright and laughed, drawing Miku's attention.

"My camera seems alright, so I think there's no harm here," the woman said, lifting the device to inspect briefly, and Miku couldn't help but feel reassured by the smile she offered. In fact, it became so infectious, she smiled in return.

With that, the two parted ways, but Miku turned to watch the couple walk away, curious. She swore she had seen one or the other of them before, but couldn't place exactly where. Frowning briefly in thought, she continued her trek into the store. That beauty mark beneath the woman's eye... she definitely had seen it before...

However, Miku also knew she couldn't afford to be distracted again, and shook her head to clear it of the thoughts before she ran into - or was run over by - anyone else. Instead, she focused on looking at the lenses, though after nearly a half hour of indecision decided the telephoto lens she already had was good enough. The thought of leaving the store empty-handed after having spent so long looking made a guilty feeling creep up her spine, so she picked up a couple rolls of film for her camera, even though she already had a good stockpile, and on her way up to the register paused in front of the specialized, older film. Usually what was hanging on the pegs of the display was extraordinarily expensive - it was film for the oldest types of cameras, and priced for those that had the money to be collectors. This time, however, she found that a package of film that would likely fit perfectly into her mother's old camera was on sale for an affordable price, and so picked it up as well.

As she stepped out, she was stopped by a voice calling out somewhere to her right, and she turned to look, even though she was almost certain they weren't talking to her. From within the hustle and bustle of the crowd walking along the sidewalk, Miku could see three girls - perhaps a year or two younger than herself - gathering together near a bus stop. Two of the girls were clearly twins, and there was little to distinguish them. The third smiled, eyes tracking downcast almost immediately as the seemingly more animated of the two twins took her sister's elbow, and they all three began walking down the street, toward where Miku was standing in front of the camera shop, watching. One of the twins - the one Miku thought looked a little quieter than her sister, walked with a pronounced limp in her right leg.

They passed her, not seeing her as anything other than another face in the crowd. At least, until their third wheel, the girl that held back and seemed to enjoy staring at her feet as she walked, looked up and glanced, just briefly, to Miku.

As their eyes met, the sound of crazed, giggling laughter echoed through Miku's mind, and she stumbled a little under the sudden _clarity_ of it, and how _sad_ the laughing was. However, just as quickly as the girl looked up, she turned and looked away, and the sound faded.

Miku blinked in surprise. Every so often she would be caught by that sense of hers; she saw things, she heard things other people couldn't or didn't see. She knew she wasn't crazy, because her brother had the same intuition - and people called it a sixth sense, that what she was seeing or hearing were ghosts or other apparitions. She knew there were skeptics about it, as well, and in the modern society, many people brushed hearing voices off as either folklore or mental illness. Miku tended to believe they were ghosts, though. Even though mental illnesses carried a genetic predisposition, as researchers liked to point out whenever they could, it would not explain how she and her brother saw or heard the exact same things at the exact same time.

It was curious, though; before, the noises she heard were always brief, but they always seemed distant, or attached to some other person. Maybe it was a ghost following a lover, a family member, or even their killer. Never had it seemed so... immediate. So _there_ as it just had. It was almost as though that third girl was a ghost herself. But that girl did not look dead, and the other two were talking to her, the crowd parted and reformed behind her rather than through her. Miku was so distracted by the moment that she missed when one of the twins also looked in her direction, suddenly, tracking her line of sight immediately to Miku. However, just as quickly, the girl seemed to become nervous about staring at a stranger and turned back to the front.

Still distracted, Miku turned in the opposite direction the three girls had gone, despite their heading taking them toward Shinjuku, which was where Miku needed to go to get the train home, and let herself relax into the easy pace of just another person in a crowd, walking down a sidewalk, faceless and anonymous.

* * *

 

Miku and Mafuyu's apartment was a surprisingly large affair with a separate bedroom for each of the siblings. At first, they had refused what they saw as excess hospitality on behalf of Mr. Takamine: they were both perfectly content to share a studio apartment, so long as the main room had enough floor space for them both to roll out their futons and sleep. The folklorist, however, was having none of that, and arranged for Mafuyu to make enough money to support living in a two bedroom apartment. Mr. Takamine had cited that they needed to be able to have some time and space for themselves, and while they had protested weakly, the Hinasaki siblings soon had given in to the temptation of having the larger space.

Miku kicked her shoes off at the door, storing them off to the side and walked into the apartment, storing her purse in its usual place, but keeping hold of the small bag from the camera shop. She paused at the silence. It wasn't entirely unusual - her brother was gone fairly often on weekends out on assignment and even some evenings after classes, but this silence had stretched on most of the spring break. Mafuyu still wasn't back from his trip up to the mountains on assignment to learn some local folklore about a community in which mirrors were used to supposedly keep a great evil contained. School would start in just two days, and Miku wondered if her brother would be back soon enough before the beginning of the year to share the whole story of what happened.

She walked over to the small shrine set up near the corner of the main living area; upon it was a picture of Miku and Mafuyu's mother, with the typical small offerings found in a memorial shrine.

Even after many years, and all the strange noises she heard and violent dreams she had, the memory of her own mother's body hanging limply from the branch of a tree burned painfully in Miku's chest every single time.

Miku picked up the old camera next to the shrine, and took it with her to the center of the room. After a minute or two of trying to remember which latches and levers of the old camera had to be moved and unclasped to get to the film loading tray - and which actually did stick and weren't going to break the entire thing if she pried a little too hard to get them open - she was able to get the film in and the camera ready for use. Once it was done, she lifted the camera and looked through it toward one the pictures hanging on the wall.

Just looking through the lens of the camera gave her an unusual unease, crawling somewhere inside her. It was the tingling in her mind, perhaps her sixth sense that usually came right before one of the stronger auditory or visual phenomena, but this time, things seemed different.. Now, Miku was getting uncomfortable to the point of squirming, a feeling that just by holding the camera, by looking through the lens, something was looking back at her.

Quickly, she put the camera up, thoughts of taking photos with it forgotten, and went about her business for the rest of the day; she made dinner, she watched the television for just long enough to catch the local news and what the weather would be like for tomorrow - it was going to rain - she bathed, then she retreated to her room to read until she fell asleep. At least, that was the plan, but she was up for many hours longer than she wanted to. First, she tossed and turned, thoughts of her brother in a horrible car accident or getting lost on his way back to the city forcing her thoughts to race. Then, thoughts of old folkore she'd read about outsiders kidnapped and used in ancient human sacrificial rituals followed, bringing the stinging prickling of tears to her eyes until the racing of her mind began to make darkness creep in at the edges of her vision.

When she did sleep, Miku dreamed of being chased down an endless hallway by a dark figure she could not truly see and did not understand. It looked like hands, reaching for her, her neck, her arms, her legs, to strangle her, to pull her apart, to rip her utterly to shreds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jinbouchou - A part of Tokyo that not only has, as stated, a large amount of used book stores and antique/curio shops, but also holds the seat of most major Japanese publishing companies. Perfect place for three Fatal Frame protags (And one not-so-protag) to bump into each other, I think.
> 
> Get your flashlights, things just get darker from here.


	3. Crimson Butterfly

**Tokyo - Shinjuku**

"I can't believe Uncle Kei thought we had to _move_ though," Mio Amakura lamented, and motioned toward the great Shinjuku Station behind her. Droves of people moved to and fro in the station, but the three girls had stopped in front of it as their day of adventuring around the capital came to a close. "I mean, we have so many trains here that it would just have been a longer train ride to the school and that's all! I'm more than willing to get up earlier if it means getting to go to school with my friends..." She turned a somewhat pathetic, defeated look toward her sister. Mayu nodded, passively, her expression mirroring her sister's, but didn't say anything.

"Anyway, I'm going to miss hanging out after school with you, Sae!" Mio continued, bursting out so suddenly that their third member, who had been looking everywhere but at Mio and Mayu, started with a little flail of her hands.

"It's alright," Sae Kurosawa, their third member responded, and smiled in return, bowing her head a little, calming her hands and settling them against her thighs. "We still have the weekends and summer break, right?"

Mio nodded enthusiastically, and Mayu perked up. The three had been friends throughout their entire middle school lives; being separated now just seemed a cruel and unbefitting punishment. But Kei Amakura, Mio and Mayu's caretaker, had decided to move for work, to nearly the exact opposite side of the city. It put them far enough away from the high school they were supposed to go to with Sae that they had been enrolled in one closer to the new home.

Mio had complained immediately, but it had fallen on deaf ears. Mayu seemed merely distressed, but never voiced her opinion.

"Oh, I know! Let me call Uncle Kei and see if he's done with the last of the boxes; if he is, maybe you can stay over tonight for our last night before we have to go back to school," Mio suggested enthusiastically, and both the other girls seemed to come alive at the idea. "That's alright with you, right? The dorms won't mind?"

"I moved my things into them earlier this week," Sae replied, with a firm nod. "I don't think they pay much attention to where the students are the week before classes."

Mio, Mayu, and Sae all exchanged happy looks, then turned to enter the train station.

* * *

 

The spare futon was rolled out on the floor between Mio and Mayu's beds, piled on with the spare comforter and extra pillows, and all three girls sat on the messy spread, talking amongst themselves animatedly about what high school would be like, the kinds of people they would meet and the stories they would have to share about the differences and similarities between their two schools. Then, the topic switched several times, from movies and popular culture, to boys - and Mio's enthusiasm for perhaps meeting some in high school earned an awkward silence out of Mayu that did not go unnoticed by Sae - before they began to separate to their own beds as sleepiness began to take hold.

Before they slept, Mayu decided to relay a ghost story she had heard from her father before he died, of a village that had disappeared into the mists of time, never to be heard from again. Where, if you walked through the exact place it used to reside, you could hear the echoing screams from their last night, and the maniacal laughter of the evil that swallowed the town whole. Sae had nervously laughed off the story; Mayu frowned at her sister - she had heard the story before, so it had less effect, but it made her no more happy, and Mio quailed a little under the gaze. The awkward silence lasted long enough that they all, by unspoken command, settled into their beds, and Mio rose for only long enough to shut off the light.

Three hours later, the Amakura twins were jolted awake by a _scream_ from next to them. One so loud that they also heard a holler from their uncle Kei the next room over. The world erupted into chaos, Mio and Mayu instantly up and asking what was wrong, for the scream had come from Sae, and a moment later everyone was blinded by Kei snapping on the light to the girls' room. Mio and Mayu both stared down at Sae; Kei looked fervently around the room to discern if there was any other danger - an intruder or otherwise - before settling his gaze on the girl curled up on the spare futon.

Sae laid, rolled over, face-down on her pillow, racked with heart-wrenching sobs as she gripped the fabric. She mumbled, ranting something about how _"it should have been me"_ \- and other things too obscured by the pillow to make out coherently.

"Sae! What's wrong!?" Mio was up and out of bed faster than her sister, and instantly knelt down by Sae's side. "Was it a nightmare!? Or is there something-"

She didn't get the chance to do more than brush Sae's shoulder, however, as just that little contact had the other girl recoiling violently, and knocking Mayu over wholesale as the other tried to get out of bed, but was more than a little wobbly due to her bad knee and lack of wearing her bandages or brace to bed, and Mayu went down with a soft cry of pain at the impact.

There wasn't any chance for apologies, however, as Sae was quickly on her feet and bolted out the door toward the bathroom. Kei barely had the chance to press against the doorframe before the girl, half his size, took him down as well

"What's the matter? Is she alright?" he asked, more than a little concerned, and was met by equally as confused looks from his twin nieces.

Mio stood, and with Kei followed Sae toward the bathroom. Mayu limped out a moment later, wincing a bit every time she stepped onto her bad leg, but too concerned to stop and re-brace it.

However both Mio and Kei stopped short when they heard the sound of retching from within the bathroom and looked at each other helplessly. Mayu caught up and almost immediately pushed herself up against her sister's back, gripping Mio's shoulders to relieve some of the stress from her feet, and especially her bad leg. Mio braced herself without complaint.

"Um," Mio looked from Kei, to what she could see of Mayu over her shoulder.

"I'll go make some tea, see if it will settle her stomach," Kei mumbled, a little lamely, and went for the kitchen.

That just left the twins in the hallway, and they exchanged helpless looks.

"Should we try to talk to her?" Mio asked, and Mayu frowned.

"I don't know. Maybe we should just go back to the room and wait for her to get done."

"Alright," and, as always, Mio relented to her sister's suggestion. She let Mayu take a more comfortable position, clinging onto one of her arms and shoulder to help support the weight of her bad leg, and they both went back to the bedroom, sitting anxiously on Mio's bed as they waited.

"Maybe I shouldn't have ended with a ghost story," Mio mumbled, staring down at her hands as she rested them in her lap. Mayu placed her hand over her sister's, and when Mio looked up, Mayu shook her head.

"I don't think that was what it was."

The tea was finished first, and Kei came in with a tray. He placed it down next to the futon they had set up for Sae, then looked at his nieces. No one said anything, even though he was expectantly watching either of the twins to suddenly burst out with a confession as to what had happened. None was forthcoming, but he stayed until Sae returned, several minutes later; she had her head bowed, her bangs hiding her face, and she sat on her futon without another word and didn't touch the tea at all.

"Um, Sae," Mio began, and the other girl shook her head. Not yet, the motion said. Mio went quiet, and again tried to look to Mayu, but the other Amakura was looking down silently at Sae. Something had her face creased, and she looked sad; Mio couldn't say she blamed her..

Finally, several long minutes later, Kei decided things had settled enough that he could return to bed, especially since Sae didn't seem keen on talking anyway, and closed the door behind him. The silence lingered for long enough that all three girls could hear him climb into bed in the other room.

"Did you... have a nightmare, Sae?" Mio finally tried again after a moment. She didn't know her friend suffered from them, but maybe, she thought, being away from home had given her a particularly bad dream.

Sae nodded, once, and stayed silent.

Mio frowned, and tried again. "You want to talk about it?"

Sae didn't say anything for a long moment, but when she did speak, it made both twins lean forward to hear her - Mio nearly off her bed, and Mayu into Mio's shoulder.

"What was that?" Mio asked, trying to keep her voice quiet and soothing.

"Yae," Sae said, just a little louder.

"Your sister, right?" Mio continued. She hadn't really heard the story, because Sae didn't seem keen on sharing too much, but she did know that once, Sae had a twin sister herself. One that died.

"Yes."

"Was it about... her death?" at the word 'death' Mio felt Mayu grip her shoulder a little tighter, and draw closer. The thought of losing a twin like that... the revelation had made both of the Amakuras' blood run cold, but had especially seemed to upset Mayu.

"No," Sae let a shaky sigh, one that ended with a choked sob.

"Alright, alright!" Mio continued, voice rising suddenly in a panic, and thought, desperately, for a new topic. Maybe getting her mind off of it would be better than trying to find out what happened.

"You dream about missing her," Mayu said suddenly, her voice oddly dull, before Mio could figure out something else to talk about.

Sae sobbed again, sniffled, but nodded. "Yes."

"Um, Uncle Kei made tea," Mio said, taking the brief respite granted by Mayu's interruption to grab hold of a new topic. Sae looked slowly over to where the teapot was set out, then stared back at the corner of the room. "You should drink some. It'll be warm and soothing and maybe help settle your stomach!"

_But it won't bring your sister back,_ the thought came unbidden to Mio's mind, and she shook her head to clear it away. No, it would be rude to say that, even if she knew it to be true.

A moment of silence followed, one that quailed Mio and made her feel even more awkward than she had before. It was interrupted once more by Mayu.

"Sae."

Sae turned her head, face partially obscured by her chin-length hair as she let it fall messily over her expression, unconcerned with moving it. Mayu's tone remained dull, lifeless; it was a tone that Mio had only heard a few times in her life, and it never failed to terrify her.

Now was no exception, and she grabbed her sister's arm to steady her, eyebrows creasing at the actions. Now was _also_ not the time for Mayu to be acting strangely.

"Do you hate your dreams?"

Sae's lips parted in a shocked expression for just a brief minute, but then, slowly, she wilted downward, staring at the blanket beneath her. She shook her head, just once, then her whole body went tense - fingers gripped the blankets tightly, her face scrunched, and finally, when her red-rimmed eyes looked up once again, even though a single tear streaked down her face, she was _smiling._

"I only hate waking up," Sae's voice was far too cheerful, and it ended in a noise that may have been either a giggle or a sob.

Mio shivered.


	4. Reika

**Kuze Shrine**

"I want to move to Tokyo," Reika Kuze - _Reika Yukishiro_ as she had originally been born - stated, again, trying to ignore the pressure to bow beneath the withering one-eyed glare Yashuu Kuze directed toward her. It was a difficult prospect, seated as she was on the tatami in a room that had long since lost its warmth, with Yashuu standing and pacing like an agitated tiger in front of her.

"You have an obligation here," Yashuu replied, as though that was the only answer necessary. Typically, it was; but Reika had decided to be _stubborn,_ apparently.

"I know, but with all due respect, Lady Kuze, my illness is not getting any better living in such a cold place. Tokyo has many respected doctors; maybe they'll be able to find some better medication or cure," she stayed firm, posture upright, eyes watching Yashuu back as intently as the older woman glowered at her. Reika was not going to budge on this matter. "Then I can come back and help run the shrine as I am supposed to."

Yashuu's gaze narrowed, and she took a deep breath, exhaling an exasperated, " _Reika_ " to whatever god was listening and would knock some sense into the young woman.

"And how do you propose you eke out a living in Tokyo? It's very expensive to live in the big city," Yashuu continued, turning a sidelong glance with her good eye toward the young priestess making a large fuss.

"If all else fails, I can get a part-time job with another shrine," Reika offered with a wan smile.

Yashuu, somehow, scowled even harder. Reika continued to keep composure, though the urge to wilt was stronger than ever.

The silence dragged on and on, but though Reika had the urge to burst out in protest, to plead her case, she remained silent, gnawing the inside of her lip.

"You will return," Yashuu stated after a moment, her pacing stopping for just long enough to turn and meet Reika's gaze evenly - no small feat for someone with only one good eye.

"I will, yes," Reika started, slowly, trying to weigh her answer. "Amane and Hisame are getting to be old enough they can perform the winter ceremonies on their own; I shouldn't be needed..."

"And if I say you will return for the final festival before winter begins?"

"I... will point out that the cold... makes my illness worse," she didn't sound very sure, finally a crack in the calm facade she had put on, but Reika set her shoulders to make up for the uncertainty. She couldn't afford to have a weakness exploited now. "But so long as I do not have to stay through the winter... that's the important part."

Yashuu stalked again, pacing back and forth through the altar room, glancing occasionally toward the various religious figures and trinkets, again praying that some god would take pity on her and influence Reika to change her mind.

Finally, Yashuu stopped, and her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. The slight movement had Reika sitting up even straighter, despite the threads of pain that wove from her spine throughout the rest of the muscles in her back. She had won.

"Very well," Yashuu conceded, standing, facing to the side from Reika, but watching the younger woman out of the corner of her eye. "But you will return when I call for you; it will be at the major ceremonies during the summer and before the winter when the shrine is snowed in."

She wanted to jump for joy, no matter how much it would cause her whole body to scream in pain, and dance out the door, but Reika managed to wrangle her glee into a single, beaming smile, an earnest bow - one which sent a flare of pain from her sore back through the rest of her - and stood to leave the room, walking stiffly as her legs had become used to sitting, and nothing was easy with the affliction she had.

Yashuu watched Reika leave, and sighed after the door clicked shut. "... Stubborn girl."

* * *

 

Finally out from under Yashuu's harsh glare, Reika sighed, her body going slack as it could before the position pulled in a different direction and hurt, as well. It was a particularly bad day; the aching, burning pain of the illness that racked her body had flared up again, and she knew part of it was probably the stress of talking to Yashuu about leaving. Now that the conversation was over - and she felt a giddiness within her at the thought of being allowed to leave the shrine and go to the city, to stake out on her own...

... Possibly finding Kaname, as well. She missed him more than anything else, though she never dared speak about it too much.

"Reika, are you okay? Are you in trouble with the mistress, too?" the voice stopped the priestess in her tracks, and she paused to turn to the young girl that spoke to her.

"Amane," Reika smiled, but it looked a touch forced. Now that she could relax, the pain seemed to pile onto her double. Still, the youngest Kuze - actual Kuze, blood related to the family and not just adopted as Reika was - was Reika's favorite person in the shrine to talk to, so though the priestess wanted little more than to go take her medication and lie in her room, possibly reading or watching the small television she had, she also couldn't pass up the opportunity to speak to the young girl for a couple minutes. "I suppose I am, depending on how you look at it, but she agreed with me, so it'll be alright."

Amane looked relieved almost immediately, but jumped as Reika's look turned wry, and fidgeted.

"Now, what are _you_ in trouble for?" Reika teased, but gently.

The youngest Kuze's gaze immediately dropped to the floor. Reika could see the tips of Amane's ears turn pink. "Um... I might've snuck off to the village again - but it was Shigure's idea!"

"Oh? And what did Shigure tell you was down there this time?"

"Well! She, she told me that she heard some of the last patrons say a big group of visitors arrived," Amane continued to stare at the floor, but did tilt her head up just a fraction as she hurriedly rushed the last sentence. "And I was thinking that maybe I could just see them!"

Reika chuckled, and normally would've leaned down to ruffle Amane's hair affectionately, but didn't think her current condition would allow her to stand back up so easily, so instead she ended with a soft tutting. "What if they come up to the shrine anyway? The shrine probably is the biggest attraction in this area, aside from the views."

"Um, well... I just... I thought maybe..." Amane trailed off to mumbling something that Reika didn't quite catch.

"Thought maybe?"

"... Um. My brother might've visited the town again. I don't know if he'd come back to the shrine, though."

"You have a brother?" Reika raised an eyebrow - it was news to her that Amane had a sibling; she'd never heard Amane's mother or grandmother speak on it either. Then again, Kyouka didn't speak about much of anyone but her lost love Akito, and while Reika could sympathize with missing someone dearly, Kyouka was a little... frightening about it sometimes.

"But don't tell anyone!"

"Doesn't Shigure know?" Reika countered, thinking perhaps that had been why the shorter haired girl had tricked Amane.

"No... no she just knows that I like hearing about new people in town," Amane fidgeted, and, in a stroke of desperation, reached to change the topic. "You're limping again, Reika, do you need help getting around the shrine or... back to your room? I have to go wash all the bedding, now, so I'll have to go to your room anyway."

Well, if the girl was so desperate to change topics, Reika would humor her. If Amane's brother wasn't going to come back to the shrine, and Amane was desperate to keep it a secret, then Reika figured it might be serious and she should leave it be until Amane was willing to talk to her.

"I would like that, actually," she knew she didn't actually need the help - it was a bad flare-up, but Reika was used to the illness' ebb and flow and knew she would be alright for now - but if it would give Amane a brief break from the next several days, where she was sure to be punished by thoroughly scrubbing the expansive shrine from top to bottom, then Reika would do whatever she could to help. They spoke of small things as they traversed the shrine, and Reika immediately took to her medicine and retreated to bed with a book while Amane reluctantly went back to her duties.

The medicine didn't seem to help, and by the time the sun had gone down and Reika knew she was becoming quite exhausted from the day's events, the pain was as bad as ever. No matter what position she sat or laid in, some part of her body burned and complained. Some days, she wondered if she was being punished, or cursed, by being a successor to the running of the Kuze Shrine - she was to inherit the head priestess duties because Yashuu had dubbed Kyouka unfit for the position, and Amane hadn't been born yet - but was not of Kuze blood. After all, the Kuze Shrine was famous for being a place where painful lamentations could be aired, and then relieved, where anyone could come and one of the priestesses would symbolically take away the pain. But the pain was supposed to go to the kushimi dolls via the carved or engraved wood ofuda, not right to _Reika._

She sighed, shifting a little from side to side, only for the pain to flare up again, then dull into a widespread ache. There was another reason she hated her condition acting up; she usually had terrible dreams to accompany the pain. It made her a bit anxious to sleep, for fear of what she would see, despite the pain being utterly exhausting to her. She mulled over standing and trying to make herself some tea - or seeing if one of the younger girls were still around and she could request them do it - but ultimately decided to turn the light by her bedside out, and slid down into bed, wincing along the way.

* * *

 

Reika couldn't breathe. That was always how it started, and usually how it ended. Her chest felt bound tight, like something heavy was sitting on it, forcing the air up out of her lungs. She gasped, painfully, breathing in labored groans. Her body ached, searing pain from head to toe, thrumming in her head, blazing down her spine and into her extremities.

_"Sleep, priestess, lie in peace..."_

The singing was unnerving, too, quiet and haunting. She turned her head, her neck cramped, her eyes straining in the dark of the room, little flashes of light arcing in from her peripheral vision.

The sound of a hammer hitting something metallic, perhaps, or possibly a particularly resonant stone echoed.

_"Sleep, priestess, lie in peace..."_

Reika's hands hurt, a particularly acute sense of pain in her palms, like she'd fallen on something and caught herself with them. At the edge of her vision, she saw movement; one of the younger girls of the shrine bringing a hammer down upon a spike. With the shadows, however, she couldn't tell which one.

It was going into her hand. Blood welled up and spilled over her palm, hot and wet. Reika moved, struggled, but all it did was make her body hurt more, made the blood flow faster. Then, suddenly, there was blood all over her, and the _tink_ of a hammer hitting the spike was replaced by the hard _thud_ of a dead body hitting the floor. Horror bloomed in her chest as she saw the glazed, lifeless gaze of Kaname staring at her.

_I wanted to see you again._

_You're here._

_You're gone._

His body was gripped by something Reika could not see, hoisting him by his ankle and dragging him away.

_"... and suffering unleashed on all..."_

Reika stirred, moved, and she was up; she was no longer in a dark, dank room. She needed to find Kaname. She needed to see him again, but she had no idea where he had been dragged off to. She paced through the shrine, though she didn't recognize it; the passageways were familiar, but the layout twisted and turned in unfamiliar ways, and the scenery kept shifting, changing. She moved, a steady, stalking walk from a bedroom, to an altar, from an altar through the common room of the home she and her family had lived in before the avalanche had struck and killed them. She made for her old bedroom, to find respite, to wake up from this nightmare, but all she found through the door was a long hallway in a shrine she only vaguely recognized from a visit as a child.

"I didn't mean to survive!"

Someone was kneeling before the altar, praying fervently, rocking back and forth. They were sobbing, crying, mumbling over and over...

"I didn't mean to survive! It was my fault... it was my fault they're dead... it's all my fault..."

Reika approached, thoughts of finding Kaname completely forgotten in the usual way of dreams. She still couldn't breathe; her chest still ached, still made her labor through her every breath. She wanted to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, she stepped forward, hand outreached to touch them - the blood curiously gone.

The person stopped chanting suddenly, slowly turning toward her, eyes tracking from her ankles to her face.

As her hand alighted on their shoulder, the person screamed, blood-curdling horror lacing the noise that made Reika's neck hair stand on end, then evaporated into black ash, leaving behind only a dark stain on the ground.

* * *

 

It was enough to jolt the priestess out of her sleep, to get her aching, exhausted, protesting body to its feet. She hated the illness, she hated her dreams - why did she have those dreams!? - and most of all, she hated that she could do nothing about any of it.

Mind racing, but body dragging, Reika slowly made her way out of her room, out into the shrine, wandering aimlessly and in pain. She couldn't sleep again, not after that. She couldn't lay still, it hurt too much. She couldn't keep walking, it hurt too much. She couldn't do anything; she was stuck and helpless.

"... It's my fault..." She mumbled, not even realizing she spoke aloud, then collapsed in tears against the wall.


	5. Rei

**Rei Kurosawa and Yuu Asou's Apartment**

The pattering of rain against the window provided a soothing backdrop to the quiet mood of the home. Rei Kurosawa sat on the small couch, feet tucked up beneath her, leaning into the one-armed embrace of her boyfriend, flipping through the various photos of sakura blossoms she held in her hands.

"If these are the kind of pictures you take for an internship, they'd be severely ill-advised not to hire you immediately," Yuu Asou joked a little, then pointed to a picture Rei held in her left hand after lifting two up for comparison. She nodded and set it on the arm of the couch, while placing the one in her right hand on a larger pile sitting on Yuu's lap.

"I... actually don't know about that," Rei started, slowly, after a brief pause. "Being hired on, I mean."

"Oh?" Yuu turned a bit toward her, and Rei sighed, looking out the nearby window.

"I think I might work freelance. The more I think about working for a big magazine company like that, the more it stresses me out, thinking about deadlines and having to find very specific locations," she picked up two more pictures, compared them mentally, then placed them both on the pile on Yuu's lap. "I can make my own schedule and pick what jobs I want to do as a freelance agent."

Yuu nodded, still watching her sort through the last remaining pictures. "It does carry inherent risk, since you would have to become popular and get noticed, but I think, if you keep going with your skill, you can make a very productive career out of it eventually."

Rei smiled back at him, appreciatively, and pushed her shoulder affectionately into his side. He laughed, and was about to say something more, when the phone ringing interrupted him. Yuu carefully extracted himself from around Rei, and placed the pile of photos that had been on his lap on the coffee table, before finding his way to the phone.

"Hello, Kurosawa-Asou residence."

"Yuu? It's Misaki," the introduction came from a very familiar voice on the other end - firm and high-pitched it could be none other than his cousin, and Yuu's stance slacked into a more casual one.

"Good evening, Misaki, how are you?" he replied.

"It could be worse. It could be _better,_ too, but it could be worse," Misaki stated, and Yuu wanted to ask what was wrong, but there were always a number of things that bothered Misaki. She was famous for her poor temperament, except around a few select people.

"I just wanted to call and let you know, we'll be in town next weekend," she continued, and something in her tone soured further.

"You missed the sakura blossoms by a few weeks," he laughed.

"That's not what we're coming for, actually," Misaki stated, and Yuu found himself curious.

"Oh? Is there another special occasion?"

"Well, I received a call from Kei Amakura the other day," she started, and then he heard her sigh. "And... Big Sister is coming with me because the day after _that_ she got a call from... Ayako that... needs her attention."

The name 'Ayako' was always drawled over with such distaste; not that Yuu could entirely blame Misaki, but some part of him wondered if it was not better Misaki let go of the childhood-long history of bad blood between herself and the older girl, even if only for the sake that Misaki sincerely looked up to Ayako's _mother_.

"Oh, so he did call you about the radio," Yuu said, and heard a noise of confirmation on the other line. "I told him you were probably the best one to ask about that, since I only have the one radio; you seem to have inherited all the interesting family heirlooms."

Misaki scoffed on the other line. "Whatever the case, I'll be there next Saturday evening. I _do_ still have to get back to school on Monday."

"Alright, then I'll be sure to meet up with you then," he nodded in affirmation, though they were on the phone.

"You better, Yuu," she stated and he felt himself laugh. "Goodnight, see you then."

"Until then, Misaki," Yuu bid farewell and hung up the phone, returning to Rei's side. His girlfriend had finished sorting through her piles of photos, and had two sitting on the coffee table, with one smaller stack in her hands. He reclaimed his seat next to Rei, and she was cuddled up under his arm in no time. The rain outside had hit a crescendo and now the pattering was more of a dull roar.

"You figured out what photos you want to show the clients first then, I take it," he stated, and she nodded, silently handing him over the stack for a second opinion. He had already seen most of the pictures, so he flipped quickly to the last few, and nodded.

"So, your cousin will be in town?" Rei asked as Yuu pondered over the last few photos.

"Yes. Kei called her and asked to borrow one of her radios - she has most of the ones left over from Dr. Asou's time, as well as most of the cameras - because they were trying to research some crystals they were gifted by the Himuro family head a few weeks back," Yuu stated, then gave a final nod of agreement to Rei's choices in photos and handed them back to her.

Rei laughed and once again nudged him with her shoulder, tone turning playful. "So are you going to introduce us anytime? I know she doesn't come back to the mainland very often, and I _also_ know she's your favorite cousin."

Yuu laughed. "Well, we'll be talking about business most of the time she's here, but I'll try to make time to bring her back here for dinner or lunch. She isn't coming alone, though."

"Oh? Does she have a boyfriend she's bringing along?"

"Ah, well, no," Yuu stated. "Apparently she's coming with her 'big sister'."

Rei raised her eyebrows. Given that Yuu didn't speak like the other girl was his relation in any way, Rei could only assume the 'big sister' was an informal title given to someone Misaki was particularly good friends with.

"Well, if she's so close to them as to dub them honorary family, they should come along, too," Rei said, a little unsure of what Yuu thought or knew.

With the way Yuu looked relieved, however, Rei figured he had been waiting for her to show approval first, and she smiled, gently, leaning up to kiss him briefly on the cheek, before she leaned away to pick up the portfolio on the ground and begin arranging the pictures within it to show off to the client.

Yuu watched her for a few moments, waiting until she had it arranged, and once again gave her a concurrence for how she had arranged the pictures - he always thought Rei had a better sense of design, color, and composure than he did, he was a writer and researcher after all - but he also knew she preferred to have him look over her work for precisely those reasons. Rei wanted to ensure she wasn't losing the bigger picture in the smaller details.

With that task done, Rei placed her portfolio down and looked back at Yuu. The pensive expression on her face gave him pause, quashing his desire to stand up and head to bed.

"Yuu, I was thinking... if my career starts to really take off when this internship is over...." she looked around the apartment they shared. It was nice, if small, and a bit too expensive for what it was, though given the good location, Rei couldn't blame the owners for the high rent rate. "We should move. Into a real house somewhere."

Yuu's eyebrows rose, surprised, but at the same time, not. With the way their relationship had been going, he had intended to propose to Rei very soon. Her suggestion gave him a perfect timeline of how to do things.

"I agree," he replied, and nodded. "It would be for the best; and you could turn a closet into a real darkroom if you need to."

Rei nodded, happily, a hopeful glimmer in her eye. Yuu wondered if she suspected something of his intentions, so he quickly had to look away lest he give away the entire thing.

"I should continue on this report. If I have to meet Misaki _and_ Kei and Mafuyu, I should have it done for Mr. Takamine to look over," he said by way of excusing himself, if only so he didn't get busted for his thoughts; it wouldn't be much of a surprise, but he didn't want to take more edge off the impact of it than he had to, and disappeared down the hall to the spare room they both used as a quiet place free of distractions to get work done when it needed to be done.

Rei watched him go, a little smile on her face, and a lightness in her heart. She had been mulling over the decision to move for a long time; that he seemed to agree made her far beyond happy, and what was more, it put them closer to the little niggling idea of a perfect life she could see when she lost focus on her work every so often and let her mind drift.

Some days, however, Rei wished her dreams at night were as kind as the dreams during the day. That her subconscious was as free-spirited and gentle as her imagination. There were times she did have nice dreams. There were other times she had horrifying nightmares.

It was always about Yuu dead.

The sight of him, pale and limp and lying in the pouring rain, blood oozing from a dozen wounds that she couldn't see but knew every one of them were as fatal as the awkward angle his head was craned back at, the shattered glass all around. She never understood the circumstances, she just knew that he was dead. It was a bitter, soul-crushing feeling.

The dreams tended to be mercifully short, though. Just his motionless body, that bit of blood, and the despair.

Rei woke - as she always did - and turned to see her boyfriend next to her, sleeping peacefully. Still, but not lifeless, his chest rose and fell with his deep, even breaths. They had slept beside each other for long enough that her stirring in the night no longer woke him unless she jerked awake particularly violently, or cried out in her sleep - which she had done several times before. Still, she couldn't help but watch him sleep for a few minutes, just as she did several other nights, assuring herself that he was still there. He was still alive and still alright.

Bad dreams were just bad dreams. Even though Rei couldn't escape the sinking feeling in her stomach that it seemed _prophetic_ somehow. She had to continue on, believing that the dreams would continue to just be dreams and no more. No less.

Rei tossed and turned as she tried to fall back asleep, the image haunting the edges of her vision every time she closed her eyes. She didn't sleep well for three days following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuu is such a nice guy. It would be a shame if something
> 
> happened
> 
> to him. Wouldn't it?


	6. Sakuya and Misaki

**Tokyo Medical University**

Misaki Asou set her jaw and narrowed her eyes at the girl across from her - a look that was happily returned. Through her irritation, Misaki had the thought that two people should not have the same eyes, but _look_ so differently as Ayako and Sakuya did. Sakuya was beauty and grace and kindness; Ayako was ego and irritation and an unsettling sinister edge. Sakuya smiled; Ayako smirked.

It was also Misaki's humble opinion that someone like Ayako should _never be allowed to be a doctor, either._ That girl took a little too much joy in cutting things apart, as they had all found out the hard way during a so-called 'accident' which involved a pair of scissors and Madoka Tsukimori's pet canary, an incident that had been the spark of the years-long rivalry between Misaki Asou and Ayako Haibara.

Ayako had feigned childish innocence and curiosity, and her grandfather, especially, had dismissed it as a child not understanding the consequences of their actions. Misaki had seen Ayako's expression - the little brat knew _exactly_ what she was doing. Misaki also hadn't been afraid to call the girl out on it, but the protests had gone nowhere, though it did make Ayako more wary around her.

So Misaki hadn't seen the other girl get up to any violent trouble in the years since, but just because she didn't _see_ it, didn't mean it never happened, and more than once through their childhood Misaki had found Madoka sobbing in a corner or covered in bruises she didn't dare relay the origin of. More than once it had led to an argument or an altercation - Misaki was not afraid to fight with someone two years older than her - and more than once had Misaki found herself alongside Ayako, squirming in humiliation and indignant rage under the disapproving frown of Sakuya. Not a glare, there was never really any anger there. No, it was all _disappointment,_ and that was _always_ worse than actual anger because someone like Sakuya should never have to be disappointed or _sad_.

It made for an interesting dichotomy: Sakuya was a mentor to Misaki, a 'big sister', everything Misaki aspired to be as a person, even if in recent years it became harder and harder to have much patience. Sakuya was someone even Misaki's mother joked had a better handle on Misaki's behavior than she did.

Ayako was a nuisance at best.

"Ayako," and Sakuya was caught in the middle, but if it bothered her even a single iota, she never once showed signs of the pressure. "You haven't been taking your medication."

Ayako's look peeled slowly from Misaki's, and melted into pure sugar and innocence as she turned to her mother. Misaki just barely reminded herself she was too old to snort and roll her eyes. At least not this time.

"It was just the one time, mother," the girl said, and the saccharine in her tone could've killed a small child.

Misaki gnawed the inside of her lip, wishing this conversation could be done and over with so she could get _away_ from Ayako, and get back out into the city with Sakuya until Kei and Yuu were done with her radios and they all met back up for dinner.

"They found you on the roof, Ayako," Sakuya said, as though they hadn't _just_ gone over this with the staff of the university. All things considered Ayako was fairly well an adult and would normally have been trusted to take care of herself - this was her second year of university, after all - but when she had been found on the roof of the dormitories, wandering dangerously close to the edges, mumbling something about blood and dashed skulls to herself in the dead of the night, the school had decided to call her parents.

"It won't happen again, mother," Ayako said, and she tried for 'dismissive', but her usual haughtiness came to a satisfyingly screeching halt when she was face-to-face with her own mother.

But then, Misaki had to admit, Sakuya had that effect on people. _Everyone,_ even the usually dull-expressioned Ruka _._

"That doesn't occur when you don't take it just _one_ time," Sakuya rebutted, tone still even and gentle, but firm on the emphasis, and Misaki could only feel satisfaction as she watched the excuses dry up on Ayako's tongue before they were even spoken.

"I may have... forgotten," Ayako continued, and finally she was breaking under the pressure.

"Do I need to have You refresh your prescription?" Sakuya continued, a note of concern in her voice. It made Ayako wince.

  
Misaki barely kept from smiling.

"Do we... have to talk about this here? I mean... you have a _guest,_ " Ayako asked, glancing only briefly over to Misaki, and quickly away, full aware of the light in the other girl's eyes at watching her under fire like that.

"I just want to make sure you're still going to be safe, Ayako. You're my daughter, and I don't want you hurt," Sakuya stated, and this time even Ayako couldn't hide the flush of guilt and shame as it washed over her.

"Promise me you will take the medication every time you need to, Ayako. I don't want to have to come back here for anything but good visits and to watch you graduate," Sakuya continued, a slight pleading tone to her voice, and Ayako's ego visibly crumbled.

"Yes... I will, mother," Ayako said, and the defeat in her voice nearly made Misaki laugh-

"Misaki."

\- and just like that, her high came crashing down as Sakuya, without even having turned to look at her or so much as glanced toward her, said a single word in a markedly firm tone, and destroyed Misaki's inflated ego as easily as she had dismantled Ayako's.

"This isn't something to laugh about. She could have died," the statement brought a notably sad note with it from Sakuya, and Misaki felt herself sink lower in her chair. If Ayako hadn't already been worn down by Sakuya before, she knew the other girl would be smirking at her.

Somewhere in Misaki's mind, she wondered if it would really be _such_ a tragedy if Ayako died, then dismissed it in the same thought. She wouldn't mind if Ayako just up and disappeared one day - moved out of the country, for instance, or took a job or schooling in some far distant corner of Japan - but _dying_ was going a bit far.

So maybe the situation was more dire than Misaki was giving it credit for, and just that thought - that realization - was enough to make her avoid eye contact, pointedly frowning at the edge of the table.

Was their meeting over _yet?_ She wanted to get out to the city and leave Ayako behind.

Unfortunately for Misaki, it took another hour before Sakuya was ready to go, and another ten minutes after that before Misaki allowed herself to relax into the more friendly and casual air she had around Sakuya.

Tokyo was a huge city with a lot to do, and Misaki realized she didn't visit the metropolis very often; not that she had much reason to, nor much desire to be caught in the crowds with all those _people_ and all those strong _emotions_ that grated on the back of her mind - emotions not from herself, but strongly radiated from other people that caught up somewhere in her mind and made her think she saw ghosts every so often.

Sakuya had explained, a long time ago, what those _manifestations_ were. It was something Misaki did not envy her cousin for spending his whole life chasing, trying to prove true, continuing on with research one lonely folklorist had dedicated his life to proving when everyone simply thought him crazy for believing in _ghosts._ People nowadays were no more accepting of the theory. Yuu Asou could only continue on with what Kunihiko Asou had started, and fight that uphill battle.

Misaki preferred simpler things; like keeping the evidence to herself. People without the 'sense' rarely understood anyway. Misaki's mother, for instance, never inherited it, and was accepting but mostly non-believing and merely brushed it off as an oddness of Misaki's - but Sakuya had it. Sakuya had the sense even more strongly than Misaki did and it was in no small part why she found it so easy to get along with the woman.

That, and the strange phenomena Misaki had discovered with Sakuya that two particularly strong senses would reverberate into each other until emotions were shared in an oddly empath-like way.

Regardless, it made being around large crowds, or places where strong emotions were present a difficult and annoying proposition. And if it was bad for her, Misaki knew, it had to be even worse for Sakuya. Still, the woman never complained, not a single time, and the calm helped keep Misaki calm, Sakuya's placid demeanor cascading through the frenzied thoughts and emotions like a cool wave and grounding the younger woman.

Misaki craned her head back, staring up at the huge skyscrapers that surrounded them as they walked through Shinjuku, outside of the University and hospital, and headed toward Shinjuku station. There was technically a train station right outside the campus, but Sakuya insisted they walk to Shinjuku station instead - _why,_ Misaki would never understand, seeing as there was a greater convenience in just riding the other train, and transferring as quickly as possible once they arrived at Shinjuku station, seeing as being at the busy station was like sticking her head into a bees' nest.

Instead, Misaki watched the skyscrapers as she walked through the city, glancing down to ensure she didn't run into anyone, but distracted otherwise. The buildings looked so cold and imposing, looming above as they did. Less like guardians, and more like watching her, waiting for her to do something wrong so they could topple down...

And Misaki squeezed her eyes shut as she walked, then shook her head. Someone near her had some kind of phobia, she decided, and she saw Sakuya slow, and so slowed to match the new pace. Sakuya must have felt or noticed it, too.

"Misaki," Sakuya said, gentle and quiet, just loud enough for the two of them to hear. Misaki's attention was rapt and immediate. "You've been having nightmares."

Misaki had just enough grace not to let her expression change too much to one of shock, but she did sway slightly. "Big Sister?"

"I can see it in your eyes; you're not sleeping enough. And... I can feel it. You've woken up twice this week in terror."

Misaki winced; was the fear so great it was reverberating through to Sakuya?

"They're just dreams," Misaki stated, flippantly, waving her hand. "It's not important."

"What are you dreaming about?" Sakuya continued, pursuing the line of logic without a pause or space for further argument.

"Things. People I know dead. It's... it's not important," Misaki continued, but the drop in her shoulders and obvious discomfort worked in contrary to her words.

"It is when you have a sense like ours," Sakuya stated plainly. Misaki frowned, then sighed her resignation. She didn't like withholding things from Sakuya like that, but that urge fought with her embarrassment over the actual contents of her dreams and that Sakuya could tell when she was upset, anyway.

"I dream... it's strange. I dream of Madoka and Marie and Tomoe dead. And... when I look in a mirror, I can't see my face," she moved her hands a bit, trying to explain, but trying not to get into too much detail. "And sometimes, I'm chasing after Ruka. Oh... and it's... noisy? Like when you're in the Kagura stage during the festival; music all over, and lots of people talking. But it sounds like that even when I'm alone."

"Where are you, in these dreams?"

"... At the hospital. Well, at Rougetsu Hall, technically, but at the hospital. Am I remembering... something from my past?"

Sakuya pressed her fingertips together in thought, then sighed. "The last time you had those dreams, Misaki... was it Monday and Thursday?"

"Yes..." Misaki pursed her lips together, but Sakuya had already admitted to being able to feel when Misaki was scared. It didn't make it sit any better with her.

"Those are the same days I've had nightmares as well. Thursday was a particularly bad sleepwalking episode."

Misaki stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at Sakuya in a mixture of disbelief and surprise. Sakuya paused, turning to look directly at Misaki.

"But I don't dream of things like death or chasing someone to try to save them."

"What do you dream of?" Misaki was almost afraid to ask, but curiosity got the better of her by far.

"A world so peaceful and empty it's scary," Sakuya stated, and Misaki frowned, confused. What was so frightening about something peaceful and empty?

"I can't see my face in my dreams, either. I can't see anyone's faces. I know who I am looking at, but I don't know their names. Soon, it feels like everything merely slips out of my mind. Yet, it never bothers me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I a jerk for letting Ayako live? Yes.
> 
> The bigger question is: How do you portray Misaki and Sakuya's relationship with them both being lucid and the age gap between them being maintained without making it seem weird?
> 
> Now there's the question I'll struggle with for the rest of this fic.
> 
> Anyhoo, thank you, lovely readers. The ride will continue next week.


	7. Dinner

**Tokyo**

Rei gazed around the restaurant, and shifted a little. Yuu hadn't mentioned the sort of restaurant they would be going to, and so she had dressed conservatively, but not too fancy for the occasion. She wished now she would have been given more time to plan out a better outfit, or at least worn some better jewelry or _something._ She would have to be annoyed at Yuu later.

"Rei Kurosawa?" it was another young man standing next to Yuu that caught her attention as the maitre d' bowed them to their seats and bid them a good dinner, after which Yuu started introductions. It snapped Rei out of her distracted reverie and she bowed to Kei in return.

"Yes, I am Rei Kurosawa," she replied, and didn't need to look at Yuu to see the sympathetic smile on his face.

"It's nice to finally meet you. Yuu speaks about you a lot. I'm Kei Amakura" Kei continued, and Rei laughed a quiet laugh, afraid to be too loud in the dim, subdued atmosphere of the higher-class restaurant.

"I hope he says good things about me," she teased, as though to lighten her own mood, and it seemed to lift a mark of seriousness from Kei's face. Did she look so severe that he was that worried about offending her?

She needed to relax. This was to be a friendly, casual dinner between coworkers and their guests, so worries about being underdressed would need to be put aside. Even if the accommodations were upscale.

"He says nothing but good things," Kei continued, and let an easygoing smile pull up his lips. Rei took a deep breath and let her worries out with it, then returned the expression.

"I'm glad," she nodded toward Kei again, and they all took their seats. There was still almost twenty minutes before the dinner officially began, so more than half the table was empty, but Rei recognized Mr. Takamine immediately, and his assistant to his left, who sat next to a man about the same age as her. Rei assumed that was his assistant's boyfriend or husband. Luckily, the other woman didn't appear to be any better dressed than she was, and it made her feel even better.

"Ah, Yuu!" Junsei Takamine stood, and he went through the greetings for Yuu and Rei, before settling back into his seat. "So is your cousin - Misaki Asou? Is she coming?"

"She said she would be here soon," Yuu stated. "Mafuyu is coming as well, but I think he called you before he called me."

"Yes, he said he was bringing his sister?" Junsei asked, and Yuu nodded.

"He's bringing her with him as his guest," Yuu said. "Which is good; I've never met her before, but Mafuyu seems very proud of her."

"Ah, speaking of them," Junsei said, and both Rei and Yuu turned toward the entrance to see two youngsters approaching. One was a kind-looking young man a couple years younger than her, and the other was a girl who looked far less mousy than Rei had imagined.

Really, there was a sharpness in her eyes that was surprising. What was more, Rei had the strange inkling she'd met the girl before.

After the introductions were done, and Rei learned the girl's name to be Miku, her thoughts of deja vu turned out to be correct.

"You were at the camera store in Jinbouchou a while back, weren't you?" Miku asked, as soon as she had Rei's attention and Takamine and his assistants were busy talking amongst themselves about work.

Rei blinked a few times, then remembered the girl she'd had a collision with a few weeks ago walking out of the store. The realization made her laugh.

"I was; I didn't think we'd run into each other again," Rei said, and tried for her best reassuring smile.

"Is your camera still doing alright?" Miku asked. Rei remembered she had looked over her camera after the collision to assure the younger woman that there was no harm done, but it hadn't been very well. Luckily, when she got home, the camera appeared to still be just fine.

"It's fine, actually. Thank you for asking," Rei said, with a nod of her head. "Are you a photographer, too?" Rei figured it was probably why the younger girl was in the camera shop, but she wasn't entirely certain.

"It's... a hobby," Miku said, looking down and away from Rei for a moment. Rei nearly apologized, then realized it was a little odd to feel the need to apologize for such a simple question.

"I'm a photographer, too," Rei continued, feeling a bit as though an icebreaker had failed, but perhaps if she shifted some of the conversation's topic a bit, it could alleviate any strange tension the girl had. "Professionally... or, that's what I'm working toward, at least."

"Really?" and some of the interest, and light, returned to the younger woman's eyes. Whatever she had done had worked, and Rei felt she could relax her look into an easier smile.

"Yes. I'm actually working as an intern right now for a small magazine company," Rei replied.

"Was it difficult getting the position?" And just like that, Rei realized she'd help the girl break out of her shell, even just a little. It was a warm sensation.

"My university works with them, so not exactly, but I might go into freelance after the internship is over," Rei said, and the girl seemed to brighten even more.

They spent the next few minutes discussing photography and some of their favorite artists. Miku seemed interested enough in it that Rei was going to ask if she planned to pursue becoming a professional photographer after high school, when suddenly Miku's eyebrows knit in concentration, and she suddenly looked to the side. She hadn't been looking that way before, hadn't even glanced that way, but suddenly something had her attention. It struck Rei as odd.

Rei turned to follow Miku's line of sight, just as some sort of _presence_ hit her mind. She wasn't even sure she could describe the sensation, just that it grabbed her attention.

A young woman, and an older woman were being led across the restaurant floor by an oddly flustered maitre d'. Rei couldn't tell if the younger woman looked older than Miku, or if it was just her expression. Something about it was pinched, and serious. Miku seemed like an observant, aloof teenager, but it was a type of curiosity mixed with a fear of getting too close to something, content more to observe than to interact. This girl looked colder, more calculating, closed off and distant, but on purpose.

Except, Rei knew it wasn't the girl that had caught Miku's attention, and as she looked to the last of the three walking toward their table, she found herself caught as well.

It wasn't that the woman was beautiful - she was, but Rei would be surprised if that was anything but the _last_ thing anyone could notice. There was just something about her that caught the eye, the mind, and forced attention on her. She wasn't dressed flamboyantly, though she seemed to favor accenting things in red.

It was too difficult to explain. All Rei knew, she couldn't look away.

"Misaki," Yuu said, and he had an odd tone in his voice. He stood to greet his cousin.

"Yuu. Everyone," Misaki nodded, but her cold, disinterested look remained. "I am Misaki Asou, and this is Sakuya Haibara."

Sakuya inclined her head with a mysterious sort of smile that had Rei sitting further forward in her seat, and she saw the other woman's eyes track around the table. When they landed on her, some part of the magic was broken, and some other part was strengthened all the same. The expression, the light in her eye, the way she looked at Rei, it made her want to squirm like a child caught doing something wrong. It wasn't like Miku and Misaki, looking sharp and observant. This went beyond that; Rei had a feeling like all of her secrets were exposed and she was being read like an open book. It was terrifying and interesting, uncomfortable and awe striking all at once. What was particularly strange, though, was there was not an ounce of malice to it. The only discomfort came from just how _knowing_ the look was, but try as she might, Rei could not find herself suspicious that even if the other woman knew her secrets she would tell them to anyone.

"Greetings, Miss Haibara. I am Junsei Takamine," Junsei said, and even he sounded a little ruffled. The tone was enough to get Rei to pry her eyes away from Sakuya, and the first person whose gaze she caught was Miku, sitting across from her. A look of understanding passed between them, then Rei turned to look at the rest of the table as Miku went back to observing Sakuya. Mafuyu looked a little uncomfortable, as did Yuu, Junsei had regained his composure, but the rest of the staff at the table looked only somewhat confused that there was a sudden air of tension just at the arrival of the newcomers.

As more introductions were going around, Yuu leaned closer to Rei. "I should have mentioned Miss Haibara is a bit surprising to meet for the first time. I know I've told you Misaki can be hard to talk to, but I guess I never thought you'd meet her 'big sister'."

Rei just nodded, silently, her gaze once again drawn to the older woman, who sat near the other end of the table with a polite, yet still mysterious smile to her face.

Maybe that was the worst part, Rei thought. Even though this Miss Haibara had a look like she could read someone's every thought and wish and deep, dark secret, there was almost nothing discernible about her in turn, nothing that gave deep insight to her life: She, perhaps, liked red. She, perhaps, liked to smile, and that smile was patient but neutral, and never open enough to read real intent. She had a striking eye color, something pale brown that Rei with her artistic background just knew in the right light would probably shine a gorgeous honey-gold color. She had this indescribable, otherworldly aura about her.

Rei doubted she'd ever forget her.

Dinner was a strange affair, tense and stilted, and while no one mentioned it, everyone knew what the cause was. Rei tried to keep up amicable conversation with Miku, and even tried to get Misaki in on things, but the other girl seemed more interested in speaking with Yuu. It came down to him involving all of them in conversation.

Misaki, Rei found, was just as cold and distant as her disinterested gaze told. However there was something about her being near Sakuya that every time the woman spoke, lit up her eyes. It was a curious sort of fawning, but Rei didn't question it, especially since the way Sakuya seemed to smile at Misaki was the same kind of smile that she gave _everyone._ It was maddening how much Sakuya seemed to _know,_ and what was worse, her very presence made something in the back of Rei's mind feel open, exposed, like there was a long, open tunnel behind her that anyone walking down could see her every thought. When Rei looked to Miku, she found the younger girl almost constantly peering at Sakuya with a strange kind of interest, and it unless she was being directly addressed, that was where the younger girl's gaze remained.

The feeling of exposure made concentrating on conversation very difficult, but Rei managed it. Sakuya, counterpoint to Misaki, seemed rather friendly and easy to talk to. Her voice was soft and soothing, and she always seemed to be smiling, willing to laugh, but softly. Still, she was as hard to read as she seemed to make everyone feel as easy. It wasn't that she was hiding everything, but her emotions seemed to change, quickly, easily, as fast as she swapped topics and people whom she was addressing directly. It was unsettling to say the least, but Rei could at least appreciate the woman for her kindness, and the longer they talked, the more apparent that kindness became.

It was about the only thing Rei learned about Sakuya the entire time they spoke. By the time dinner was done and everyone was saying their goodbyes, slowly filtering out, Rei had learned only a few things about where Misaki and Sakuya were from - a curious island where the moon was all but worshipped as the chief deity, that was said to be a gate to the Underworld. Yuu spoke excitedly about wanting to go there someday, and Mr. Takamine seemed to agree with the sentiment, though he had several other trips lined up beforehand, as well as more books to write, so it would be several years yet before they would be able to go. Rei and Yuu left at the same time as Misaki and Sakuya, but after Miku and Mafuyu and before Mr. Takamine, somewhere at the middle of the pack, and Rei bid Mr. Takamine a good night and good luck on his next assignment before they left.

* * *

 

The door to the apartment swung open without sound as Yuu and Rei entered, both in a contemplative silence. The dinner party had gone well, and Rei left feeling far better than she had arrived. She had told Miku they would have to meet up for lunch sometime to discuss photography, before the end of the school year, and the younger woman seemed happy to agree. So, Rei figured, she may have made a new friend. On the tail end of that, however, she found herself thinking about being looked at like she could hide literally nothing.

Late as it was, neither Rei nor Yuu spent much time getting ready for bed before they both tucked in for the night.

For once, Rei didn't dream about Yuu dying.

She dreamed about a crescent moon glowing gold and drifting in and out of visibility with clouds blowing across the sky. She dreamed of a hospital that should have smelled of sterility, but instead was musky and dusty. Walking down the hallway, windows were shattered, the paint was peeling from the cracked walls, and Rei had the feeling she was being followed.

It was silent, though. So silent it was eerie. There should have been doctors and nurses around, or some beeping from various medical machines, but there was nothing but the silence and Rei. Even her footsteps didn't make a noise.

She approached a door she did not know the destination of, and opened it, to find a huge open room on the other side, apparently in the center of an old-style Japanese mansion. Being a dream, she did not question crossing that threshold and seeing the crowd of people around her. Music sounded, and it seemed to be coming from something at the center of the crowd she could not see. She bumped into a few people as she tried to fight the crowd to the center, but even though she should have discovered it, the crowd was endless.

Finally, she turned, frustrated, back toward the door, only to find it closed. She reached to open it, but it stuck, and the sound of her rattling the doorknob seemed to cut through the rest of the noise of the crowd.

Suddenly, she was the center of attention, and dozens of people watched her. They were all wearing masks. Blank, expressionless masks.

She couldn't see their eyes.

Rei pressed her back against the door, pushing against it in futile hope that it would open for her.

As though to get a better look at her, one of the dozens of people in the crowd pulled their mask off, but instead of a recognizable face underneath, it was as though someone had lifted a cover from a smoke vent, and a wavering blur was all that marked the person's features.

Rei turned and opened the door, finally able to get it open, and on the other side was a hallway, long, nearly endless. She ran for her life toward the far end, feet sluggish and not taking her as fast as they need to. There was a sound behind her, and she could hear it getting louder and louder, closer and closer.

A mirror at the far end of the hall proved no exit, but it did make something scream from behind her, and she was able to duck to the side, through a door that hadn't been there when she was running down the hallway, and into a room full of dressers and personal effects. The room seemed mirrored; whatever existed in place on one side was also on the other, but as Rei crossed through the center of the room, things were not as exact as it seemed, and when she looked back over the center of the room to where she had come from, it was cold and blue and everything was in shambles.

A door behind her clacked open.

Rei didn't bother to see what it was before she was running again.

Every door she went through led to a different place, and through it all, she could only think of the faceless person chasing her.

It wasn't until she ran nearly smack-dab into a woman whose eyes were covered in a strip of bloody cloth, the world becoming loud with moaning about eyes being violently gouged out, that Rei realized everything in here was after her. Faceless people, a woman with no eyes, and-

Something grabbed her. She screamed, fought against it, pushed as hard as she could...

... And awoke sobbing in the real world to a confused Yuu looking up at her from where he'd ended up, sprawled on the ground. She was too distracted by her terror to realize she'd shoved him off the bed.

"Rei!" but he was up as soon as the shock had worn off, arms wrapping around her, pulling her against his chest and mumbling soothing words to her, though most of them went right through her ears without sticking in her mind.

What was that? Who were those faceless people? Why did that woman have her eyes ripped out?

Rei didn't realize she mumbled all those questions aloud.


	8. Miku and Kirie

**Tokyo - Rail Car**

The before-school train car was always a quiet affair, and especially so on a Monday morning. Subdued chatter barely rose in volume above the steady rumble and clack of the train's wheels moving along their track, and the only break to the sleepy scenery was just how fast the trees outside whizzed by as they were passed.

Miku preferred a train car closer to the back, as they tended to be the last ones filled, and stayed quietest the longest. They were also, typically, the ones that had seating available in a nice, quiet corner, and unless it was a particularly busy day, she could stay on her side of the train car until they arrived at the station for the school without feeling crowded.

There was one other girl that had begun sitting near her - not close, or at least not _too_ close. She was a new face, but she wore the uniform of an entirely different school a little ways away. Not that it was too odd, given Miku's propensity for heading to school particularly early most days, and so it made sense that someone that went to a school further away would want to leave earlier to be there on time.

What was odd was that someone that went to that particular school - Miku vaguely recalled it being a high-end private school for the daughters of wealthy businessmen, politicians, and longstanding landowners - but she knew that back in the direction the train came from was another, similar private school that should have been far closer to the girl's home.

Though it made her curious, Miku never did mention anything. At least, until the day the girl arrived on the train, a week or so before summer vacation, with a book Miku recognized. Or at least, recognized the name on it - written by Junsei Takamine, after he had visited a remote village far in the north in Hokkaido. It was the first project her brother had been involved in, as well, almost two years ago when Mafuyu had first graduated high school and been discovered by the folklorist, taken under his wing.

Miku realized she must have been thinking too much about the book - she, of course, had received an advance copy from her brother and read it all - because the next thing she knew, the other girl was looking at her with a slow, shy smile crossing her features. Miku bowed her head quickly in apology, hoping her fringe of bangs would cover the brief flush of embarrassment.

She really didn't mean to stare; she just thought too much sometimes. They avoided eye contact for the rest of the trip, but the next day, the same girl was there, in the same spot, and until that Saturday, Miku watched her progress further and further in the book, a little at a time. She started to think the girl probably only read the book on the trip to and from school, which would make sense for the slow progress.

It was a Monday when Miku was surprised again. The girl plopped down right next to her with her book - again, not too close, but closer than she'd ever sat before. There was a pensive moment where Miku could _feel_ the other girl's desire to start a conversation war with a shy urge to just bury her nose in her book again.

Miku gave her something of a smile, trying to appear open to conversation, but she wasn't fond of starting conversations herself. Finally, the other girl spoke.

"I saw you looking at my book a lot over the past few days. Do you like Mr. Takamine, too?" The hopefulness in the tone made Miku smile; it was such a desperate attempt at an icebreaker that even her usual propensity for being a bit avoidant of interaction started to fall by the wayside.

"Yes, I guess you could say that. My brother... really looks up to Mr. Takamine," Miku started, not quite willing to divulge that her brother actually worked for the man, and even had collaborated some of his research to help the very book the other girl held in her hands, and that had been repaid in turn by a nicer place for the orphaned children to live. Not yet, at least.

"Oh? I hadn't heard of him until he... was in town where I grew up," the girl mentioned. "And my father was able to meet him."

It was going better than expected. Miku relaxed perceptibly in her seat, leaning back against the backrest. "My brother was fortunate enough to meet him, as well. He's a very kind man, and a very good writer."

The other girl nodded. "I only really was able to see him from a distance, but he had a kind smile."

Miku nodded, and decided to pursue further conversation. They had folklore in common, it seemed, and given her _sense_ she wasn't opposed to speaking to someone that might have interest in things like ghosts. "My name... is Hinasaki Miku. It's a pleasure to meet you." She bowed in greeting, but before she even had the chance to sit back up fully, a wave of emotion barreled right into her. She was usually good at tuning it out, but this one took her by surprise, and her head snapped back upward to look at the other girl.

"Do you... do you know Mafuyu Hinasaki?" The girl asked, and the sparkle in her eye combined with the onslaught of - joy? Against the back of her mind - made Miku lean back, just a bit.

"He's... yes. He's my brother," Miku said, slowly, uncertainly.

"Ah- S-sorry," the other girl said, suddenly realizing her enthusiasm was getting ahead of her. "I am Himuro Kirie. Your brother just visited our family home not too long ago, right?"

Miku slowly nodded, as the joy gave way to embarrassment again, and Miku was able to get on top of her own senses again. It helped her relax. "Yes. So, yours is the family that owns the land where the mirrors are used?"

"We own... the land where the Moon Shrine is. There are other shrines in the area that the land is owned by other families, but ours is the center," Kirie nodded. "There's a lot of folklore about the Moon Shrine, though. It's a huge natural cave under our family's main house."

"That would be what attracted Mr. Takamine to it," Miku pondered aloud, and Kirie nodded, a little too enthusiastically. It made her seem younger than she was, but something about Kirie was so genuinely _earnest_ that Miku wondered just how well the girl knew her brother. Or if she was just that big a fan of Junsei Takamine.

"If - if you or he... uh, Mr. Takamine or your brother, ever want to come back to study some more, let me know. I'm sure my father wouldn't mind," Kirie said, and though the tone was still enthusiastic, some part of the energy had fallen off.

Miku's brows furrowed slightly, and her head tilted, before she nodded. "I'll let him know. Do you take this train to school every day?"

"Yes. I'll be at home for the summer, but I'll be taking this train every day until the end of the school year," Kirie said, and Miku nodded.

"Alright. I'll... ask if they got all the research done that they needed to get done while they were up there," Miku said, still slowly, trying to puzzle through the emotions that were not her own and receding out of her mind, quickly.

"The book... about your family's home. It'll be out in a year or so I think," Miku said, and Kirie nodded.

"Mr. Takamine said he'd send us an advance copy of it when it was ready to be published," Kirie smiled, and Miku finally found herself smiling along with it. "I look forward to reading it. I didn't get to see what they did with the crystals we gave them."

"Crystals?"

"Yes. There were crystals in the cave under the house, and in the Demon Mouth side of the cave, too. I think my father gave them some."

"Ah," Miku nodded. "Do you want to know the results of the research?"

"No! No, let's let it be a surprise," Kirie said, placing a hand on her own leg, and Miku nodded. They spent the rest of the trip to Miku's stop speaking amicably about small things, and parted with an exchange of phone numbers.

* * *

 

Miku arrived after school to the sizzling and scent of frying vegetables and what may have been shrimp in the air. It was technically Miku's turn to cook for the night, but it seemed Mafuyu had beaten her home and gotten a jump start on the cooking. Miku took off her shoes and dropped her backpack in her room before she fully greeted her brother.

"I'm home!"

"Welcome home, Miku."

She took a seat at the small, two-person table nestled up against the wall in one of the more open parts of the kitchen and turned to her brother as he stirred the sizzling pot of vegetables and shrimp some more. The rice cooker was already done.

"Did you get off early?" Miku asked, watching him work over the stove, and he smiled over his shoulder at her. Technically, Mafuyu only had one class on Mondays, so he worked for Mr. Takamine for most of the day, and wasn't home until later in the evening.

"Yeah. I guess whatever they discovered out of the crystals was a huge success, so Mr. Takamine let us have the day off while he started writing his outline for that part of the story."

Miku nodded. "Speaking of which, I met someone from that family you guys visited for the crystals - the Himuro family."

Mafuyu blinked and turned, quickly, the spatula stilling in the pan as he cocked his head at his sister.

"Did you meet a Himuro Kirie?"

His eyebrows shot up in surprise, before he laughed.

"Yes. She was Mr. Himuro's daughter."

"She rides the same train as I do," Miku said, and gauged her brother's reaction. He looked... confused, more than anything.

"Does she go to school all the way out here...?"

Miku nodded. "She goes to a private school far away from where she's staying. I doubt she's staying at her family home and commuting _this_ far, though. I didn't really ask more."

Mafuyu fell into a thoughtful silence, turning back to the food and hissing when he realized he had let it sit for a moment too long and that some of the vegetables were likely singed as he quickly stirred the pan. It took a moment before he spoke again. "Did she know who you were?"

"She knew who _you_ are," Miku stated. "She recognized my last name, I think."

"... Ah," Mafuyu said, and this time, didn't turn to face his sister.

Miku frowned, but didn't press the issue. They - her brother and the girl - had and were both acting oddly about this, she couldn't help but be concerned, but her brother was good at hiding his emotions from her, keeping her from knowing how he was feeling. It was a trick he had passed on to her, but it was somewhat frustrating to come up against.

They ate dinner with little more conversation between them, and Miku retreated to bed shortly after that, reading over an old book of hers that was a favorite from her mother, before falling into a restless sleep.

Miku didn't know what she dreamed about, she just knew that when she woke up, she was shaking in silent tears and there was a soreness around her throat, like her shirt had pulled taught at the collar and choked her in the night.


	9. Sae and Reika

**Tokyo - Sae's High School**

Sae crossed her hands behind her back and leaned into the wall next to the gate at her school. She was supposed to head to her dorm to get her things and prepare to take the train to meet Mayu and Mio at their uncle's new house, then they had a week's worth of shopping and hanging out planned.

There was something that was giving her pause, however; it was a strange, unsettling feeling that had started in her stomach sometime after lunch and spread upward to being a little voice in the back of her mind, reminding her of what had happened the last time she had slept over at Mio and Mayu's before the school year had started. Part of it was guilt, part of it was worry she'd do it again, and part of it... part of her knew that the nightmare would be coming again. It was there, just waiting for her to sleep again.

Sae sighed, biting the inside of her lip, and pushed off from the wall, staring at her feet as she walked to her dorm. One hand reached for her phone, lightly feeling the smooth plastic, the weight of it in her bag. All she would have to do was call Mio - one quick phone call, tell her that she couldn't...

... No, that wouldn't do. She'd have to make up something, wouldn't she? Something happened with her father and she had to go back home?

That sounded better. Sae pursed her lips together, and picked up her pace. But she didn't want to disappoint them - they were her best friends! Really, they were her only friends. She was so shy and withdrawn since her sister died, she knew she had a hard time making any new friends, so she had to keep the ones she had, and she really didn't want to disappoint them...

Her pace picked up just a bit more. She would decide when she got back to her dormitory, once and for all. She would either call and tell them she had something else come up, or she would go, and put to rest the anxiety once and for all.

She hardly noticed when she got stuck in a crowd walking down the street toward the bus stop for the dorms, behind someone moving far slower than she was. When she did come back to her senses, though, seeing the crowd move past her, she found herself confused. Something about the woman ahead of her had her attention caught. It wasn't really the long hair, or the blue pants the woman was wearing, it was something else, something that gave her a strange _awareness_ of the person ahead of her, who moved with a slow, purposeful walk. It almost looked like the woman ahead of her was compensating for a leg injury.

Sae nearly walked into her back when she stopped, suddenly, then turned to step out the side of the crowd. The way the woman was looking around told she was lost, and Sae didn't quite get enough time to stare interestedly at her feet before the woman noticed she was looking.

At least, when the woman smiled, it was a kind, warm smile that didn't make Sae feel so on-edge. Sae's eye was similarly drawn to the mole near the woman's eye, and it distracted her from feeling too awkward. At least, until the woman spoke.

"Excuse me, do you know the easiest lines to take to get to Shibuya from here?" the woman's voice was similarly kind, but there was a strange, melancholy tone to it.

"Um, depends on where in Shibuya you want to go..." Sae said, quietly, and the woman leaned forward to hear her, but didn't request she repeat herself. The woman's smile became a little sympathetic; whoever this lady was, she was clearly used to dealing with people like Sae. Sae fidgeted a little, but continued, projecting her voice a bit better for the second try. "There's a bus up on the next block that leads to the station. There's a line that goes right to the edge of Shibuya from there. Don't stay on it too long, though, or you'll end up outside of Tokyo."

"Thank you very much," The woman said, and bowed graciously. Sae bowed in turn, a nervous jaunt of her head, and turned to get away as quickly as possible. Turning her back on the woman gave her the weirdest, unsettled feeling, like something was chasing her, but though she desperately threw a look back over her shoulder, she found the woman merely staring off across the street and partway up a building, looking nowhere near her.

_It's my fault..._

Sae choked on a sob, wondering where the unbidden image came from, and the sight of her sister's body, laying broken and still at the bottom of the hill.

_It's my fault... I did it to her... I survived..._

Sae broke into a run, eyes burning, barely able to see and so she bumped shoulders with more than a few passers-by. Luckily few of them had anything more than indignant growls to say under their breaths.

_It's my fault. It's my fault she died. It's my fault they all died. It's my fault they're all going to die..._

Sae sobbed, out loud, stumbling and catching herself on a wall, before she was up and running again. She could see the dormitory just a block over now, and the red brick facade was a welcome sight, even if it wasn't her home.

_"Everyone's dead."_

She heard the door thunk and rattle heavily as she burst through it, but didn't have time to check to see if she'd cracked the glass or dented the material in any way.

_"She wanted to stay with her sister."_

Sae fumbled with her keys, hands shaking, eyes blurry, sobbing so loud, but it couldn't drown out the voice in her head. The voice that sounded like someone, someone she knew, someone who...

As the key was finally found and shoved hard into the lock, and the door opened, someone started giggling, loud and clear. Who was laughing? Sae couldn't breathe, she stumbled into her dorm and barely had the presence of mind to shut the door behind her. Who was giggling? Who was still laughing? What was funny?

She looked over to the bathroom mirror, and saw her own face in it, lips upturned, eyes narrowed, laughing. Giggling. Her mind was horrified. Her body would not stop.

"Go ahead! Everyone!" she spoke, and then she sobbed, tears breaking and streaming down her cheeks. " _Die!_ "

Sae collapsed on her bed, the giggling echoing in her mind, visions of her family, her friends, her fellow villagers from Minakami Village piled up in a mound of corpses.

* * *

She was awoken at nearly eleven o'clock by her phone ringing. Groggily, she reached for it, the only thing glowing in the otherwise dark room, and lifted it, wincing against the light emitted.

It was Mio. Suddenly, the thought that she was supposed to have been packed up and out in that part of Tokyo several hours ago overtook and, panicked, she sat up and answered the call.

"Mio?"

"Gods! Sae! I was worried about you, you weren't answering your phone. Did something happen?" Mio exclaimed, and from the surprised, if relieved gasp Sae could hear in the background was any indication, Mayu was listening closely as well.

"I'm... sorry, something came up today," Sae said, and her voice dipped sadly. She prayed Mio just thought it was the leftover sleepiness.

"Are you alright?"

"I think so," she couldn't keep the slight quiver out of her voice, but Sae tried, nonetheless.

"Are you... do you still want to come over? We waited at the train station for a couple hours, and called you, but you didn't answer. I'm just glad we were able to get a hold of you."

The guilt welled up again, but Sae pushed it back down. Something about the guilt from before had triggered that... episode, she was sure about it. She couldn't afford for it to happen again.

"I... I still want to come over. How about if we meet up at noon tomorrow at the station by your uncle's house?"

"Are you sure? We could come get you, and then all of us could go back to Uncle Kei's house if you want to, more. You sound... you sound really afraid of something, Sae. We could get Uncle Kei to come with us to get you now, even!"

"No! ... No, I'm... I'm alright for now. It was just... bad memories," Sae tried, and winced. It wasn't all just bad memories, but even the admission hurt.

"Are you sure? I'm sure Uncle Kei won't mind helping us come get you if something is wrong. He'll probably want to call your father, though, to let him know what happened."

Sae groaned. No, anything but that. "No... no it's alright. I'll be alright, really. I'm safe in my dorm, and there are people here that can help if anything comes up. I'll see... I'll see you tomorrow."

"If... you're sure," Mio didn't sound so sure - _Sae_ didn't sound so sure, but she had to be. It would be no use to let her two friends see her in this state. The worst monster here was whatever was in her own mind, after all.

"Yeah. I'll be alright for now. Have... have a good night, Mio. I'll be over tomorrow, I promise."

"Alright, Sae. Tomorrow, then."

The line clicked dead, and Sae waited until long after the glow of her phone faded automatically with its task over before she attempted to lay herself back down, not even caring she was still in her school uniform. She had all summer to wash it and get the wrinkles out.

With that episode out of the way, though, Sae's worry that she'd have another nightmare welled up again. They weren't getting any worse, or any more frequent, but they were still bad. Terrible; night terrors. She didn't dare tell her father about it, either. It was too embarrassing - nightmares were for kids who had just seen a scary movie. Not for someone with only a few more years before she was an adult and had to live on her own, and gods knew she needed to get out on her own because Minakami Village was stifling and full of terrible memories. She didn't hate the people, nor did she really hate her father; it had been his idea for her to go to school in the city, away from the village and the bad memories with her sister. She just... hated the village because of the bad memories associated with it. She missed the people, though. Itsuki and Mutsuki and their little sister. The Osaka family. The old man at the Kiryuu house with his daughters that had both died a long time ago who liked to make dolls for the girls in the village because he missed his own daughters. They were all good people, nice people.

But the village just felt cursed, and it carried with it the heavy weight of knowing she would never see her sister again. All the places in the village that were theirs and theirs alone to explore, to sit in. To practice their 'secret rituals', to become closer in those quiet corners than any other sisters had before...

It was gone now.

Sae sobbed again, and curled up in her bed. She needed to stop remembering all those things. They would never come back, she needed to move on, even if she felt like she never would be able to.

Who was that woman, though? That question kept her awake for at least another twenty minutes, and she rolled over, restlessly, eyes squeezed shut, but unable to fall asleep with too many questions rolling through her mind.

Something about her presence wasn't a coincidence. Something about her had helped the memories resurface, but try as Sae might, she couldn't remember if she'd ever met the woman before. If she'd ever even _seen_ her before. Some part of her wanted to ask the woman again; another part of hoped she never saw her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus, the final threads of fate are connected. Now to pull the tapestry together.
> 
> Next week's chapter is my favorite I've written yet, so be excited for that.


	10. Lunar Eclipse

**Rougetsu Island - Yomotsuki House**

The melodic flow of the piano drifted through the room, and it made Misaki lean back against the wall, head back, eyes closed, enjoying the way Ruka played. Ruka always had talent as a musician - something Misaki never could say she had. Even if she had been, as a young child, recruited to help with the Kagura Festival the island held every time there was a lunar eclipse.

In fact, there was no sound at all from any of the five girls as they sat in various places around Ruka's room. Madoka had perched herself closest to Misaki on the floor at the table in the center of the room, and watched Ruka with such rapt attention, she had forgotten she had her hand halfway in her small package of cookies. Marie had settled herself on the other side of the piano, with her back resting against the ornate dresser. Tomoe was sitting cross-legged on the bed, and had even stopped fiddling with the hem of her skirt.

The song reached a crescendo and it seemed to take all four of the girls listening with it, as they sat up straighter, and then quietly evened off into an ending that left the whole room resonating with the energy.

"... Wow," the silence was broken by Madoka's breathless whisper, and Ruka's head dipped as she turned around, the slightest smile coloring her usually neutral expression.

"Your piano teacher was right, thinking that song was perfect for you to play," Marie said, turning her head from where she had been staring blankly at the corner of the room across from her, and smiling at her long-time friend. Ruka's smile turned into a bashful beam and she bowed her head beneath her bangs, trying to hide her face.

Madoka finally remembered she had snacks, and so the sound of the crinkling plastic interrupted the otherwise reverent silence, and things seemed to relax back to normal. Misaki stepped away from the wall, and seated herself quietly on the floor next to Madoka, who offered a cookie to her. Misaki shook her head.

"I miss you being around, Ruka," Tomoe said, and gained everyone's attention, especially Ruka's. "I mean... I know your family's going through kind of a tough time right now, but did your mom _really_ have to move all the way up to Tokyo?"

Ruka just smiled, sadly, and kept her head bowed. Misaki glowered at Tomoe, who cowed slightly under the look. The Yomotsuki family was going through more than just 'kind of' a tough time, with Ruka's mother and her father separating, and likely about to file for divorce soon with Ruka caught in the middle. Ruka loved and was close to both of her parents, so for them to split up was definitely taxing on her, and everyone knew it.

"How about if we focus on the Rougetsu Kagura tomorrow instead," Misaki proclaimed, shooting a none-too-pleased look at Tomoe, who simply continued to wilt in guilt. Getting on Misaki's bad side was never a pleasant thing.

"That nurse from the hospital is taking over for Miss Haibara isn't she?" Marie continued, grabbing Misaki's change of topic and running with it to avoid any more tension.

Misaki nodded. "They picked a new set of Kanade for this one - different than the last ones, even."

"Well, they're getting too old for it anyway; it's why we can't do it anymore," Marie chuckled, and they all followed suit. Even Misaki.

"I don't miss the practice or the weird meditation they had us do, but I do kind of miss being part of it. Big Sister says the same, even though she also says she can't do it anymore," Misaki continued, looking around the room as she spoke. It wasn't entirely the truth, but she wasn't going to divulge any more personal information than that. They didn't need to know things about Sakuya.

No one did.

"Hey, Ruka, are you going to be staying for the whole rest of the summer?" Tomoe asked, finally out from under the uncomfortable glare from Misaki.

Ruka nodded. "All but the last week. Mother wanted me back so we could go shopping before school started."

"Oh good! We'll have the whole summer to hang out and catch up, then!" Tomoe seemed excited and a little cheer was heard from Madoka.

"Not from me," Misaki said, and shook her head. "My cousin's pulling in another favor. After the Kagura, I'm going back to his house, and then we're leaving for a week. They want me to come with them to some village out by Kyoto that apparently has an old, abandoned graveyard outside it that people say they see ghosts wandering around."

"Your cousin's a little too into that, I think," Marie said, pursing her lips together. Tomoe fidgeted uncomfortably.

"That's way too scary," Madoka finally spoke, placing the package of snacks down on the table in front of her. "That folklorist he works with... aren't... aren't ghosts better off left alone?"

Misaki rolled her eyes. "They're boys; they won't leave anything alone until they've poked it enough to get the reaction they want."

"But aren't you going with them?" Madoka asked, and worry tinged her voice.

Misaki sighed. "Yeah. I'm going with them. I have to make sure Yuu and Kei don't do anything _stupid._ Besides, I have to make sure they don't break my camera."

Madoka's face fell and she scooted closer to Misaki. "You shouldn't! I mean... not... not if there really are ghosts there."

" _I_ can handle myself," Misaki stated, and wished she felt as confident as she managed to sound. Dealing with ghosts, with old folklore, was always an iffy proposition. Sometimes, the lingering emotions were harmless. Sometimes, they were not. "Look, if it's such a problem, then talk to Big Sister while I'm gone. She'll always know what's going on."

Madoka frowned, and Misaki looked around, realizing all the girls were giving her varying degrees of confused stares, except Ruka. Some part of her had the thought that only Ruka understood the weird connection she had to Sakuya, and even then, it was only because Ruka had a strong enough sense to feel what it was that linked people to Sakuya in the first place.

"She'll probably be calling me more often than my mother?" Misaki added, knowing it was the truth, but also knowing it wasn't entirely the reason. "She'll be staying, because _Ayako_ just got back in tonight."

Madoka paled, and Ruka reached out a hand from where she sat on the piano bench, setting it on Madoka's shoulder comfortingly. When Madoka looked over to her, Ruka merely nodded; she would be there, even if Misaki was not. Marie and Tomoe had similar expressions, and it made Madoka relax, just a little.

* * *

 

It was after dark before the girls left Ruka's house, and Misaki was the last one out. Madoka attempted to linger as long as she could, but eventually had to give up when her mother called her for a fifth time, and bid them all goodbye. Misaki and Ruka had stayed, speaking with each other over various things, until Misaki realized that she, too, should head home.

Misaki walked to her home in contemplative silence, worrying over the slowly growing fear in her stomach, and was seized by the urge to turn from her door and go down the block to the Haibara house. Sakuya would be feeling it, Misaki knew. Sakuya would feel the same thing and would be able to talk her out of the irritable mood she was slowly delving deeper and deeper into...

Misaki checked the sky, and found the moon high into it, practically full, and scowled. It was too late - she'd just be a burden if she went to Sakuya now, and the last thing she needed was to wake Ayako up. She would not be like a young child that had a bad dream, even though she could feel the nightmare at the vestiges of her consciousness. It was always so unpleasant knowing one was coming, but being helpless to stop it. Staying awake never helped, either, because then she started _hallucinating._

Instead, she silently unlatched her front door, closed and locked it behind her as she stepped inside, and padded quietly through the dim, familiar hallways and up the old staircase to her bedroom on the top floor. Once within, she turned the light on, and immediately went to the bookshelf perched on the wall above her bed.

Because there, seated on the edge, was a short-haired doll in a black dress.

"Miya..." Misaki mumbled, reaching up and carefully pulling the doll down. Yes, if Sakuya couldn't be there, Miya could. Miya would always help her; that was why Miya was there. Miya was warmth and comfort when the nightmares came. Some part of Misaki felt a little embarrassed that something from her childhood was still some kind of a safety net with her nearly graduated from high school. However, Miya was not an ordinary doll... and anyone that tried to convince her otherwise was wrong. Miya was something else; a part of her, a part of Sakuya. Misaki had gone through a brief period of embarrassment around the time she was 13 or 14 realizing that the way she had named the doll was the way parents typically named their children, and that Sakuya had gone along with it without a word. But now, that little embarrassment was over. It had just been her as a child thinking of a way to name the doll that wasn't too complicated, and didn't make her stretch her limited knowledge of kanji too far. _Sea_ and _night_ were just fine.

Misaki checked her room one more time, closing her eyes to feel for any errant emotional spikes, ensuring nothing had picked up on her sense and followed her, then quietly slipped into bed, a cold dread settled in her stomach. The emotion was entirely her own, and it made the process of falling asleep annoyingly difficult.

She was greeted on the other side by whispers. An entire crowd of faceless, masked people stood around her, staring at her. She was on a stage; right in the center. She couldn't see anyone's eyes, but she could feel their emotions; sadness, loneliness, despair, sudden spikes of fear. The crowd began to shrink in toward her - nothing moved but the shadows converged atop her, until she could hear people breathing, gasping, labored, painful breaths, whimpers of pain...

"Misaki."

The sound was so relieving that Misaki didn't so much jump as she whirled at the voice, and found a girl around her age. Even with the crowd closing in, Misaki felt herself relax just at the sight of the other non-masked person in the room. The girl had a short, but different hair cut from Misaki.

And she wore the same clothes as the doll Miya.

"Follow me, Misaki."

Misaki moved obediently, even though she could feel the frigid breaths of the crowd on the back of her neck, down her shirt. She shivered, and fought the urge to look back.

No, she needed to follow Miya. Miya would keep her safe. Miya wouldn't let the ghosts get to her.

Miya disappeared through a door - just walked right through it, and Misaki jogged a few steps to catch up, not realizing Miya had managed to get so far ahead of her. She reached for the door, jiggling the handle, only to realize the door was locked. She shoved against it, the panic welling up again, and the sounds of the crowd once again converging behind her-

"Over here."

Misaki didn't bother to look first, she jogged toward the voice, forcing herself to remain calm, as panicking was not going to help anyone. The voice had come from near a far smaller, sliding rice paper door. Misaki hit the door and threw it open, barreling through with little regard to what was on the other side, and slammed it shut behind her.

Just like that, the sounds of the crowd disappeared. But Misaki realized she didn't know where she was.

That had been the Kagura stage before... but where was she now?

It looked like a side-room or closet. There were a couple pushed-aside silk screen dividers in the room, and a closet in the back with dressers and an ornate kimono box. When Misaki looked to her left, she saw a lattice overlooking an entranceway - a _dirt_ entranceway, meaning it was an old house.

Except, the only way to get to the other room was to go through the door she'd just come through. Somehow, it was the most natural thing in the world to walk back through the door, even though it had just led to the kagura stage.

There was a large gathering room on the other side. She had been right in assuming it was an old-style Japanese house. A staircase led to the second floor on her left side, but, as she thought, there was a door to her right that led to the entrance. She didn't bother to explore the house; something told Misaki she should leave immediately.

She walked swiftly toward the door, but was stopped by rapid thuds, creaking from the boards, and it was heading right toward her. She turned in time to see a man dressed in a white kariginu, or something like it, with a blood-stained white veil over his eyes. He rushed at her with a cleaver in one hand, but just as he raised it to strike her down, something caught his hand, and Misaki was relieved to find Miya holding him steady.

It seemed remarkably easy for her to do.

"Go, Misaki."

Misaki didn't need to be told twice, and she was out the door in a flash, even though she felt the painful pull, the painful emptiness of leaving Miya behind. It was one thing when Miya disappeared on her own, but when Misaki tried to move away from the manifestation, _she_ hurt. Hopefully Miya'd be alright with that... with...

 _Whoever_ that was.

Even if she missed Miya, Misaki needed to move forward. The door to the outside led not to what Misaki _thought_ would be the outside, but instead, to a long hallway in what she could only assume was another hallway. She moved down it as quickly as she was safely able - the floor creaked and thudded and groaned with every step and at some point she'd forgotten she was dreaming because some sense of self-preservation told her not to step on any of the weaker looking areas lest she hurt herself.

There were two doors at the end of the hallway, and she stepped through one to find herself in a room with a projector and a screen. It wasn't like the projector in the dining room of Rougetsu Hall, where they showed movies on weekends for tourists and natives alike during dinner. The room was cold, small, and empty, and all that it contained was the projector.

The projector came alive as soon as the door closed behind Misaki - not of her volition: It showed a mirror, and whoever held the camera recording for the projector was slowly walking toward it.

Unfortunately, whoever they were, they did not cast a reflection. Misaki swallowed, but found herself watching, transfixed. The unknown cameraperson stepped closer and closer to the mirror, until she could see the reflection of ropes hanging behind the person from beams in the ceiling of the long hallway.

The closer the person got to the mirror, the tenser Misaki felt herself wind until her legs were cramping and her fingernails bit into her palms.

Then, there was a reflection in the mirror, and it appeared to be a woman, ropes hanging from her limbs and her throat. She began to float through the mirror, first her hand, reaching out, then the rest of her. Whoever held the camera didn't move, and Misaki almost didn't either, until the hand started to come through the wall from the projector screen. The sound of stretching and straining ropes filled the room, and whispers just beyond the range of Misaki's hearing, along with the sound like someone breathing into her ear.

Her heart jumped into her throat, and she turned for the door, fumbling with the knob before managing to get it open and running out and into the hallway behind her. The hall was different this time, but the sound of someone breathing in her ear remained, spurring her onward, up stairs that just seemed to _appear_ out of nowhere as she traversed the hall, around the landing, up the second flight, she didn't bother to stop and think that action had caused her to redouble on her route and that ghosts could float through walls. A second landing, and then she saw the laundry room of Haibara Hospital next to her; a place she only recognized due to the time she had spent as a child playing hide-and-seek and exploring the hospital. She was coming to the roof... but there was no going back. Not with whatever it was behind her, creaking ropes and painful, cold breathing against her ear.

She burst through the metal door, ignoring the way the hinges wailed and made another cold chill run down her back, and made her way through the hanging sheets on the roof, running for the far edge, running, running so fast and so hard that she didn't realize that the railing was right in front of her on the other side of a sheet, and she didn't have time to stop. She was going to hit the railing and if she was unlucky crash over the edge and...

The rope stretching hit a crescendo, there was a snapping noise, and suddenly, something cold seized Misaki in a painful grip, first by the wrist, and then by her middle. She was caught by the ropes! Her mind flared in panic, in terror, and she tried to scream -

"Misaki! Wake up!"

She hit sudden resistance, rebounded backward as whatever had grabbed her was pulled forward simultaneously and she found herself in a tight, warm grip that was not suffocating ropes but smelled so familiar; floral and sweet all at once with a tinge of something ethereal and unexplainable, holding her back from the edge...

"Miya?" She knew the feeling, the sensation, the emotion, it was...

"Misaki! _Wake up_!"

Misaki was vaguely aware that whoever was holding her was trembling.

"I'm... Miya? I am awake...?"

"No, you're not fully awake. Wake up, you're safe now," the voice was so gentle, but it shook with fear and tears. It was Miya, it had to be, there was no one else that knew her like this, and no one else that could find her-

_Sakuya._

The name came unbidden from the depths of Misaki's mind and suddenly, with a horrified gasp, she looked up to see the moon above her, the sheets beyond, Sakuya before her...

... And the railing keeping her from tumbling to her own death behind her.

"Big Sister..."

The last thing she saw clearly, before her eyes welled up with tears she wasn't entirely sure were from Sakuya or herself was half the night staff of the hospital grouped up, whispering, awe-struck to each other, one of the nurses holding Miya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had WAY too much fun writing the second half of that chapter.


	11. Reika and the Nightmare

**Nightmare**

Everything in her nightmare was pain. From head to toe, her bones ached, her skin burned, her muscles screamed in protest to every motion, and even breathing was effort.

That, however, was not the surprising part of her nightmare. Reika had been having the nightmares for long enough that the pain was just another annoyance.

What _was_ surprising was the fact she wasn't moving, being chased, or chasing, not running down the hallways or making her way through places she either recognized intimately or had never even so much as heard of before. No, Reika was in a cage. The ropes and wood creaked as the cage swung lightly back and forth, suspended in the air.

In the distance, the children continued their singing and chanting, and the sound of hammering continued, but it was background noise. Background noise to what would have otherwise been deafening silence.

Reika turned to move, and her muscles screamed, tensed, threatened to cramp, so she fell back limp and supine at the bottom of the cage. She turned her head enough to gaze out into the big room - she recognized it as the Engraving Shrine, where the Engravers would carve their ofuda at the behest of their guests, allowing the guests to pour out their pains in a quiet, isolated section of the shrine. The only thing on the second level of the Engraving Shrine were wooden beams - Reika knew, she'd played up there plenty of times as a child, and, in fact, she could not think of a single place within the Shrine where there was a _cage_ suspended from the ceiling. She would've known after all this time.

Movement at the corner of her vision caught her attention, and she moved her head as much as she could to look down, but found that her moving her head positioned the corner of the cage in just such a way that she lost sight of whatever was moving. Frustrated, she sighed, but couldn't move, tired and heavy as she was, body uncooperative to moving or doing much more than laying there.

She didn't have the time to pause and think of how ironic it was that she felt sore and _tired_ during a _dream,_ because the cage was moving, lowering slowly, and where she _thought_ she should have ended up on the ground of the shrine, she moved through it, entirely, down and down, further and further, into a strangely rectangular hole in the earth.

Beneath her, she heard moans, groans, the screams and anguished cries of the dead. The lower the cage moved, the louder the sounds became, and she knew she was being lowered right into it. Dozens, hundreds of voices cried out, and the light above her began to shrink, to lower.

The rhythmic hammering noises that usually sounded in her dreams became something more like shakujou, and the ringing thunk of the staves hitting the ground echoed metallically inside the hole.

Reika's skin prickled, and she tried to move, tried to force her aching body up so she could at least see more than the walls slowly moving past her, maybe then she could do something, she could get away...

... But she couldn't move, and the sounds were getting closer and closer, creeping up behind her, until she felt frigid hands move over her face, her neck, her arms, and she shivered without pain. She hated it, she hated the feeling, but she couldn't move, she was trapped, she was sick, she was...

She was going to die down here. _Evil,_ and that was the only word for it, was clawing at her back the lower she went, trying to sink its claws into her, trying to corrupt her very soul and twist her into a monster she was not... but try as she might, try as she wanted to move, she couldn't, she couldn't move at all and even trying made her whole body feel like it was going to come apart at the seams.

Something grabbed her, but she could not even so much as scream as she felt the cold hands sink, clawing, into her throat. Something had draped itself around her shoulders, and it was cold and lonely as death, but twice as evil. It had her, it had nothing but her and it would not let her go from its grip.

Reika wanted so badly to scream, but her lips wouldn't even part, her throat would not work the sounds, so all she could do was sit, silently, trembling and frozen as whatever it was perched upon her shoulders, her head, around her throat.

* * *

 

Reika sighed, adjusting her bag on her lap as she waited for the bus, and tilted her head back to look at the sky. She was feeling well enough today that being out and about wasn't painful - or at least not unmanageably so, but she was _tired._ It was a long trek from the Kuze Shrine back in to Tokyo, and dealing with Lady Yashuu was always taxing, emotionally, which combined to make her sleepy. She wanted nothing more than to bathe in the sun, and perhaps take a nice long nap beneath a tree, just enjoying the warmth of the summer and the beautiful weather. It had been several days since her last nightmare, and with the pain not flaring up, she supposed it would at least be another couple days before she would have to deal with it again.

A pity, she decided, that she didn't think she'd be able to make the trek the rest of the way to her small apartment on foot to enjoy the weather. _That_ would either cause a flare-up or leave her so exhausted she wouldn't be able to get _anything_ done the next day, and she wanted to at least try to do the laundry.

A noise interrupted Reika's thought process, and she lowered her head once more to meet a pair of large, curious eyes that almost instantly turned away, trying to feign disinterest. Normally, Reika felt like she would have left well enough alone with that, but the girl was familiar - hadn't she asked the girl directions when she was out looking for Shibuya not long ago?

"Hello... again I believe," Reika said, and put on her kindest smile - the kind she used when speaking to Minamo when the youngest miko was upset. The girl before her fidgeted, just like the other girl Reika thought about was wont to do under the circumstances, and she had to stifle a laugh.

"... Hello."

It was such a reluctant hello, that Reika was almost concerned that she'd offended the girl somehow by asking her for directions, but just as she was about to open her mouth to ask what the matter was, the other girl suddenly launched into a question.

"Who are you?"

The words were almost more of an accusation than a question, and Reika figured it would have been just as easy to substitute ' _what_ ' in that sentence with 'who'. She frowned, but tried not to let herself react too strongly. There was definitely something odd about the girl, and she didn't want to frighten her.

"I am Reika Kuze; I'm a miko from the Kuze Shrine."

The girl studied her until it became uncomfortable, and though she was the older one, the feeling like Reika should squirm wormed its way down her spine. The look she was receiving was as though the girl didn't quite believe Reika when she had spoken, but then, all of a sudden, the other girl's gaze dropped to the ground and she bowed, hurriedly.

"I'm sorry. Something very... strange happened the other day when we passed on the street," with that said, the other girl turned toward the street as though to watch for the bus to approach.

"... Ah," Reika tilted her head, unsure of what else to say. Should she press? It seemed to have been something significant if the girl was willing to give her a look like _that,_ but on the other hand, dredging up memories was probably not in anyone's best interest. Still, curiosity was high, and after an inordinately long silence, Reika spoke again. "I don't think I'm capable of curses. I know how to make ofuda against them, though, if you would like one? Maybe it was just bad luck."

Taken by surprise, the other girl jumped, then turned, and immediately lowered her gaze again, as though ashamed of her reaction. There was a terse silence, and Reika was almost entirely sure the girl was going to tell her no, going to keep ignoring her request, or something else similar, but was surprised when she saw the short black hair sway with a nod.

"Alright. Um... if you know how to ward against... a... against nightmares?"

Reika gasped, but bit the inside of her lip. She didn't need to tell the other girl that she had them, too, but there was something about the both of them being in proximity and having nightmares that just grated against some part of her and she didn't understand what.

"I... I think I can make something that will help with that. The Kuze Shrine is well-known for our ability to take pain away from other people, and I think I can make a ward for nightmares if I do it right."

The girl nodded again, then fished around in her messenger bag for a scrap of paper and a pen, hastily writing down a place to send the ofuda to - a dormitory from the way the address looked when Reika received it and looked over it, and what was more, the girl wrote her name.

_Kurosawa Sae._

Reika nodded, and then smiled at the girl, trying to be reassuring, despite the unease that had plagued their conversation thus far. There wasn't much conversation between them again and when the bus arrived they went to separate sections - Reika sat near the front of the bus, near the door. Sae seemed to make it a point to go almost all the way to the back, sit near the window, and stare at the buildings as they made their way past.

Reika fingered at the paper she held in her grip, now re-folded so no one would be able to get any information that wasn't supposed to be able to get the information, and her mind wandered a bit. The girl wanted a charm against nightmares? Perhaps, Reika thought, she should make one for herself. Her thoughts drifted to the feeling of being in that cage, of being immovable and helpless as she was lowered into the dank pit. Whatever that was.

When she arrived back at her small apartment, Reika immediately set about looking to see if she had made sure to bring back some blank talismans with her, but wilted when she realized she no longer possessed any. After a quick search around the house, she pressed her eyes shut and sighed with the realization that she would have to call back to the shrine and have them sent to her.

The miko glanced out of the window of her apartment, looking at the steel and glass structures that she could see just a little ways away, of the great metropolis Tokyo that spanned almost as far as she could see before her, and sighed. Somehow, even though the mountains were gone, it still felt as though she was in a cage...

... Perhaps that same cage from the dream.

The buildings weren't really any less of a cage, they were just... louder. Brighter. There was more energy and there were more people, but she was still trapped. She was trapped because of her illness, and she was trapped because of her situation, and she was trapped because no matter how far away from the shrine she went, there was still a leash, a tether, that kept her connected to it. One that Yashuu needed only yank on just the right amount and in just the right way, and then Reika would be in an even smaller cage than before.

And...

... She missed _him._ She missed the one boy that had come to the shrine and stole her heart away. She didn't regret falling for him, only that their time together had been so short. She never thought Kaname would leave, and what was more, she never thought that he would fall out of contact almost immediately after he did. It was eerie, jarring, but he had promised to come back.

Reika knew that her not being at the shrine might make it a little bit more difficult for Kaname to get back in touch with her, but with no sign of hide nor hair of him in so long, she figured she wasn't hurting her chances much by coming out to Tokyo. Besides, Amane knew that she was waiting for a visitor, and had been for many years. They didn't talk about it much, but Amane knew, and Amane, Reika also knew, would let her know immediately of any visitors to the shrine that came for her.

With a sigh, she set her gaze back forward, then looked to the phone where she'd accidentally left it on a shelf by the door, before trudging over to it. She just came back from the shrine, and now she had to call again. It was a terrible feeling in her stomach that clenched and burned and wouldn't go away. It wasn't that she hated the Kuze Shrine, but being away from it certainly made it feel that way.

Reika picked up the phone, snapped it open, and dialed the familiar number.


	12. Misaki, then the Twins

**Outside of Kyoto - Cemetery**

Misaki sighed and rolled her eyes for... she lost count of the number time, but every time for the past ten or so, Yuu's lips had twitched up into more and more of a smile. It was almost 3:30 in the morning, they had been out in the expansive graveyard since the sun had gone down, and though they had not seen a single _sign_ of so much as a peep of a 'ghost' or anything, Takamine continued to keep them out there, encouraging them to keep looking.

Misaki had been exhausted by about 1 in the morning. She swore if she had to keep out there for much longer, she was going to fall asleep standing up. Not for the first time, Misaki turned her camera to the sky, peeking through the lens at the moon. It was a relatively clear night, and the moon was just past full, so they had flashlights on them, but did not have them turned on.

She knew the point of being out here; some... legend about some kind of massacre and mass grave that the otherwise normal, if relatively large, graveyard was covering up. But though they had been to all the houses down the road from the graveyard, and even talked to the shrine that oversaw the graveyard, the story was all the same: Sometimes strange things happened, sometimes they didn't, but more often than not, it was quiet. Whatever strange stories had managed to make it all the way up to Tokyo had been distorted beyond the truth.

No one was really looking anymore - some of their group were split up and on the other side of the graveyard, but for those near the entrance, they were just standing around, waiting for Takamine to give them the okay to leave.

Misaki continued to stare at the moon through the camera lens. On Rougetsu Island, the legend went that the moon was a shepherd of souls, the final gateway, and that the dance during the eclipse would help send souls on their way.

If that was true, then trying to find ghosts anywhere around just after the Kagura was probably a bad idea. Of course, thinking about the Kagura just brought Misaki's tired mind wandering back to the events the other week, and the unpleasant memory that dredged up, still fresh.

She didn't like the Kagura festival. Too many people, too many emotions, too much noise, and what was more, the entire Haibara family had come back to Rougetsu to celebrate, so she was separated from her source of serenity. She didn't dare try to bring Miya to the celebration either, not and be laughed at by the younger girls on the island. The last thing she needed were the Kanade pointing and laughing and whispering to each other where they thought she couldn't hear.

But to cap it all off, the _worst_ part about this last Kagura, the part that had made it the worse one Misaki had been in since she was a kanade at around 7 years old...

This time it was just one searing thread of irritation cutting through her mind so strongly she, Ruka _and_ Madoka all paused in the middle of their conversations and while Madoka had squeaked, confused, Ruka had looked immediately to Misaki who had instantly snapped her head around to where Sakuya was.

It was hard to see, but from what Misaki could tell, Sakuya was in some kind of heated discussion with her brother, and from what she could tell from the look on Ayako's face - a bit of smug satisfaction that was directed at her mother that the brat would only have been able to pull up the courage to do when she had backup from someone else...

Misaki's grip tightened on her camera so much she nearly took a picture of the moon, but instead, found herself snapping out of her irritation, and glowered around the cemetery. Yuu was watching her with a sort of curious expression that also told he was going to be too polite to ask.

That thread of anger had lasted for most of the Kagura, and try as she might, Misaki couldn't work up the courage to go over there. She didn't really have any place to interfere with family obligations, but she wouldn't soon forget what it felt like to have Sakuya... _mad._

Sakuya didn't really get _angry._ But this time, it was definitely anger, and it lingered, it scorched part of her mind and it made her want to snap at everyone around her, even though it was entirely unfounded. She knew Ruka could feel it, Madoka had been nervous through the entire rest of the conversation, and even Tomoe and Marie had been uneasy afterward. It had continued through to the Kagura dance itself, and as the music started, Misaki felt that sparking blaze suddenly ignite through a portion of the crowd, tensing everyone it touched until it felt like the crowd of people was less watching the dance and getting lost in the music, and more like a pack of wolves surrounding a deer, just waiting for it to fall so the world could erupt into chaos. Luckily, though she faltered a little, the utsuwa never fell, and the kanade kept rhythm well.

Misaki didn't dare imagine what would have happened had the dance gone awry with tensions that mounted. And it was all coming from one source. She wondered if anyone besides herself could figure out what that source _was._

"The sun will be up soon," announced a voice a couple rows over, walking toward them from some far-off corner of the graveyard. Misaki had come to understand he was some other assistant to Takamine. She'd seen him at the dinner, but she couldn't be sure what his name was. She didn't usually learn many names, mostly because she lived on that isolated little island and knew she would probably never meet them again. "I can hear the birds starting to wake up."

"Alright," this time it was Takamine, and he had been leaned against a wall, off to the side, scribbling notes down in a notebook. "We'll meet up again back here at sundown. Let's get back to the hotel."

Misaki sighed, and finally felt Yuu's hand on her shoulder. Normally, she would have shrugged it off, but in this case, she just sighed again, and motioned with her head toward Takamine in the dark. Yuu finally laughed. He knew. He knew almost as well as she did.

This was a wild goose chase that would not end until another lead had been thrown out under the folklorist's nose and he was forced to chase it with the single-minded determination of a hunting dog. Yuu and Kei had both explained it to Misaki on the car ride over to the graveyard; you didn't get in the way of Takamine when he was on the trail of something, because he would stop at nothing to get it, and you would more or less get ignored.

She wondered why they kept working for him, then, and the response had been, mostly, because he was nice when he wasn't doggedly chasing something, he was one of the few people that didn't have a sixth sense - and this was where in the conversation they'd lost Kei more or less - that was interested in what people who did could see, and... he paid well.

Misaki really didn't think those were good enough reasons, though she did have to admit, for as much money as the folklorist had offered to pay her for just this week of her time, if that was normal, he _did_ pay well to go on worthless hunts.

Misaki collapsed into the back seat of the car when they arrived, immediately slumping backward, and fell into a dreamless, dozing sleep until they got back to the hotel, then fell asleep again almost all the way to sundown.

* * *

 

**Tokyo Suburbs - Kei Amakura's House**

"It's so quiet without Uncle Kei around, isn't it?" Mayu asked, looking up from where she had been poking at the last few grains of rice with her chopsticks. In the background, an advertisement for a department store played, brightly colored advertisements for prices flashing in the otherwise dim room.

Mio just smiled. "Yeah. It's almost eerie." She paused, then had the grace to look embarrassed. "Ah, I shouldn't say that, though. Uncle Kei will be fine! They go off on trips like that all the time."

"Yeah. But," Mayu stated, so quietly Mio almost didn't catch it. "I kind of like it like this."

"Oh?" Mio turned. It honestly wasn't the first time Mayu had made a comment like that, and it probably wouldn't be the last, but, Mio always figured, it was easiest for her to try to be open to whatever her sister said afterward. After all, that's what good sisters did.

"Yeah. Everyone's... gone. It's just us," Mayu turned a small, shy smile to her sister and Mio tried to return it. She was getting that weird, crawling feeling in the back of her mind that Mayu was having another one of her... _moments_ however.

"Yes. It'll be like this for the rest of the week," Mio continued.

"Can it be like this forever?"

Mio blinked. "Uh... well, I mean, Uncle Kei will be back, and neither of us can really get out on our own yet, so..."

That wasn't the answer Mayu wanted, and Mio knew it, but it wasn't like she was going to try to make a promise she knew would be broken in a week anyway. What was Mayu thinking; they'd run away?

"But you'll stay with me, right?"

"Of... course, Mayu. I'm not going anywhere," Mio tried for reassuring, and didn't quite get it. She had never been happier in her life to hear the house phone ring, interrupting the conversation. Jumping up, Mio all but ran to pick up the phone by the fourth ring.

"Ah, hello, Amakura residence."

"Mio? It's Kei."

"Ah, hello, Uncle Kei! How is Kyoto?" she turned a little as she heard Mayu stand and approach the phone, abandoning what was left of her dinner. They'd have to do the dishes afterward, which gave Mio even more excuse to not continue their conversation from earlier.

"It's... well, nothing has happened yet. Do you have a moment to go look in my room?"

"Sure, Uncle Kei, what do you need?"

"Could you check to see if I left my contact book on my desk?"

Mio made a noise of affirmation. "I'll go look." She turned and handed the cell phone to Mayu. "Talk to him for a minute, I've gotta go find something."

She heard Mayu quietly greet their uncle on the other line as she went for his room, though it didn't take Mio nearly long enough to find the book and come back out, because she found Mayu still oddly somber as she had been before, and felt some part of her sink.

She'd hoped Uncle Kei would have a good joke to cheer her sister up, but that didn't seem to be the case.

As soon as there was a lull, Mayu handed the phone back to Mio and quietly returned to the couch. Mio watched her go, but remembered she had something to do when Kei made an awkward noise on the other line.

"Mio, are you still there?"

"Oh! Y-yeah. I'm still here. Who am I looking for?"

"See if I ever wrote down anyone under 'Ogasawara'."

Mio repeated the name quietly to herself a few times as she flipped through the book. Though he had a cell phone, Kei always insisted on keeping a physical, written copy of everyone's names and numbers at his desk. It had seemed silly to a younger Mio, but when Kei had dropped his phone in a lake during a trip once, she saw the wisdom in it when he was able to completely replace his entire contact list within a few hours.

With a sudden sound of discovery, she found what she was looking for. "Ogasawara... it just says 'editor', is that right?"

"Yes, what's his number?"

Mio repeated the number, but the number she was speaking wasn't a local one. She didn't know country codes very well, but she was almost certain the number was an American one.

"Are you guys going to America next?" Mio asked, and she heard Mayu suddenly shift around again, caught by their conversation.

"No, no. He's just an old friend of mine who used to work independently. He retired to Hawaii a few years ago."

"Oh," Mio frowned, even though Kei couldn't see it. "Are you... thinking of going independent?"

"Well, I just had some questions, but I've gotta go now. Takamine wants us at the graveyard soon."

"You're leaving this early?"

"Yes... well. We're not really getting anywhere, but Takamine wants us in that area from sundown to sunup, basically, so we've gotta be there and-"

There was a loud, female voice in the background, though Mio didn't quite catch what she said, but she did hear the nervous laugh from Kei. "I've gotta go though, or Misaki and Yuu are going to get mad at me. Call me if anything happens."

"Alright, Uncle Kei, goodbye."

Mio hung up and went back to start picking up the dishes so they could wash them and then settle in for the night.

"Something the matter, Mio?"

"... I don't know." She did know, though; between Kei being a little odd, and Mayu being a little odd, her whole night just felt... off.

"You don't know...?"

Mio simply nodded, her eyebrows knitted, and tried to concentrate on the dishes. "... I don't know."


	13. A Beginning of Destiny

**Miku and Mafuyu's Apartment**

"I'm home."

"Welcome home."

Miku and her guest both kicked their shoes off at the door and stored them appropriately before stepping into the apartment. The scent of dinner was already wafting through the apartment - this time it actually _was_ Mafuyu's turn to cook, and Miku had warned him of a guest coming beforehand.

The two girls both stepped into the kitchen, and Mafuyu paused what he was doing to turn and gift them both with a warm smile. Miku heard Kirie's breathing catch next to her, but could only tilt her head a little at it, and watch her brother. His smile seemed as it always had, so she continued without much pause.

It was the end of summer - school was starting back up. Kirie had just arrived back from her family's home in the mountains, and the first thing she had done after arriving back at Tokyo was to get in contact with Miku and arrange to spend some time together.

Miku, of course, had gone along with it. Kirie didn't really give her... too much of an unsettled feeling; at the very least, it didn't feel like Kirie let her emotions run wild and pull on too many of Miku's senses. Furthermore, they had some common interests, and really, Miku did realize she should try to connect with more people, because some part of her was lonely and did want more company.

Miku bade Kirie to look around for a moment as she went to her bedroom to drop off her shopping bag - Miku had picked up a couple books at the store at the train station when she went to get Kirie. When she came back out toward the living area, she found her brother and the other girl conversing over something, while Kirie was looking at Miku's camera, sitting near the shrine to the siblings' mother.

"Oh, so you've been with your sister ever since?"

"Yes," Mafuyu stepped out of the kitchen, and nodded at Miku, who looked at him, and tried for a smile. Being reminded of her mother was never an easy thing for the younger Hinasaki, but she did what she could to ensure that she could move on.

Miku walking back into the living room caught Kirie's attention suddenly, and the long-haired girl stood up suddenly, giving a guilty, apologetic look over toward Miku. Miku just smiled and shook her head.

"Do you need any help finishing the food, Mafuyu?" Miku asked, after a moment, heading toward the kitchen. Mafuyu shook his head.

"No, it's almost done," he replied, and so Miku invited Kirie to sit and wait for the food to be brought out. When it was, they sat and ate, talking of relatively minor things. Near the end of the meal, however, Junsei Takamine's trip out to the town near Kyoto was brought up.

"So, was there anything?" Miku asked, as soon as Mafuyu had finished explaining, with a laugh, the look on Kei Amakura's face when Mr. Takamine had explained to him that they were being asked to either leave or be escorted off the premises by police - somewhere around the fourth night.

"No," Mafuyu shook his head. "I couldn't feel anything, Yuu couldn't feel anything, and Misaki Asou's camera didn't pick up on anything, either, though I don't know if she really would've tried to photograph anything even if she did feel it, considering how little else there was to look at. And how irritated she seemed to be by the third night." Mafuyu suspected Misaki wasn't sleeping very well, but he wasn't in her room to be able to tell for certain.

Miku smiled, and tried to imagine the scene. On one hand it was troubling they got close to being in trouble with the law, on the other hand, the idea that Mr. Takamine had finally been thrown off his quest by threat of legal proceedings was both somewhat funny and a relief that she got her brother back early.

"Ah, speaking of Miss Asou, Miss Himuro, we were able to listen in on some of those crystals your father gave to us - especially the ones that looked like mirror shards, on a special radio. There were voices on them."

"Really?" Kirie's eyes lit up and she sat upright. Miku had learned the other girl was actually secretly into a _lot_ of occult things; being from a family with a shrine, she also had a bit of a sixth sense herself, and it was easier to speak on those things with her.

"Yes," Mafuyu nodded, setting his chopsticks down as he prepared to launch into another story. Miku had already heard the story, but Kirie was able to be regaled with the voices speaking about various, strange things in the house, but especially something about the mirrors that were everywhere, and something about... ropes. The information about the Himuro mansion had mostly consisted of the information about the mirrors, so the rope information was somewhat new to them; and that there weren't many visible when they visited meant it was a detail that had been overlooked.

The mention of ropes, however, made Kirie frown in thought as Mafuyu asked her about it. "... I don't know, to be honest. I mean, the shrine on the hill has them up in the rafters, but I never really asked about them." There was a momentary pause, and then she sat up. "Well, I remember as a child, there were more ropes in one of the halls near the entrance of the house. Not... hanging _low_ , but they were wrapped around the rafters. I think they're gone now, though. Um... and there is the one hallway we decorate with low-hanging lanterns during the summer. It was fun to play there when I was younger. I could ask my father the next time I talk to him what happened to them?"

Mafuyu put his hands up. "If you wish to; I won't force you, or anything."

"If it comes up with something interesting, though, maybe Mr. Takamine can visit again!" Kirie mentioned, sounding excited, and Mafuyu, surprised, gave a small, quiet laugh.

"Perhaps he could. If there's even more that we haven't discovered yet, Mr. Takamine will want to know. He is almost done writing a book on that discovery, after all."

"But he went to that graveyard in Kyoto in the middle of it...?" Kirie looked confused.

"He does that," Mafuyu replied. "He's going to incorporate other folklore, as well, considering just one story doesn't always have a book's worth of information in it. That may be the main focal point, but there are other things that could be connected or could be considered. There are also other places with similar rituals and ideas that have to be connected back into the main one. You read the books, so you probably can see a lot of that, but I don't think anyone realizes how much extra traveling and research we do, going after information that he never uses at all. Being a folklorist means a lot of research."

Kirie nodded. "Well, let me talk to my father, and we'll see how much more information I can ask him about. I'll see if I can get him to agree to let Mr. Takamine visit again if there seems to be any additional information. It'd be easiest to just go there and find something, right?"

Mafuyu nodded, but looked apologetic all the same. "I'm sorry if it imposes too much on your family."

"No! No, it's really alright," Kirie beamed a smile at the elder Hinasaki sibling. "If there isn't anything, anyway, I won't waste your time, but if there is something else that was overlooked, I'd love to help you and Mr. Takamine out with the new book."

Mafuyu nodded, Miku nodded as well, and dinner continued on amicably.

* * *

 

Kirie stepped into her dorm room, a silly little smile on her lips that had been there since she'd left the Hinasaki's apartment, and sighed a happy sigh. She was so fortunate to have met the visitor's sister, and she not only was able to talk to Mafuyu, she had made a new friend in his sister, as well. Kirie wasn't really going to tell Miku what she _thought_ of her brother, of course, at least not at the moment, not when she didn't even know what he thought of her, but...

She sighed happily, then took a shower, using the warm water to help calm her mind and soothe her into warm, quiet contentment so her excitement wouldn't keep her up. She didn't have anywhere to go the next day, but tossing and turning all night wasn't something she had on the agenda, either.

She settled herself into her bed when her hair was sufficiently dry after reading several chapters of a book she had been meaning to finish for a week, a little smile on her lips, and fell asleep.

She awoke at some point in the night, and she didn't know when. She wasn't able to turn over and look at the clock, because though her eyes opened a crack, and she recognized the dim interior of her dorm room, illuminated by what light of the city was coming in through the blinds, she couldn't move.

_Not again..._ the thought echoed through her mind. She was awake. Her body was not. All she could do was stare beyond the foot of her bed, toward the desk there. Her eyes wouldn't move beyond that; there was only that chair, the desk, something shiny in her peripheral vision, and her inability to process much of it.

There was a quiet, rhythmic grinding noise she could hear. A dull thudding, a dull roar. It sounded like someone was opening and closing a paper sliding door over and over again, but the door slamming was muffled by something. The noise would get louder, then fade away, as though the door was closer, then further away.

Kirie tried to move, tried to do anything, but all she could do was move her lips, just a twitch.

Another thudding sound, this time like footsteps, and though it sounded like someone was walking around her bed, but though it continued for a while, no one ever appeared in her line of sight.

However, she could _feel_ something in there with her. That sense of presence that another human being was in her room. Whoever it was, was close by her.

She hadn't been dreaming of being tied down like she normally did, tied down and pulled apart, so she didn't understand this situation, though her brain was coming to the slow realization that part of it was awake, while the rest of her was notably _not._

Shadows moved on her wall, swaying, moving, like someone walking, and it coincided with the sound like someone was walking around her bed, though what she saw didn't move closer or further, more like it moved in place, even though it looked as though it was walking normally.

Then, it sounded like someone was speaking to her. She didn't really understand the words, either they were figments of her imagination, or she didn't speak whatever language they were speaking, but it was there, and it sounded like someone on the phone, walking up and down the hall right outside her room.

"Stop, stop it... stop... go away..." she wanted so badly to say those things, but she could not. Her lips would only twitch. Her eyes would not open anymore. She was stuck.

Finally, something, and she had no idea what, _laughed_ softly, right there, next to her ear, and her entire body unlocked, tingling from head to toe.

Kirie, terrified, sat bolt upright, and immediately looked to where the voice had spoken from but, of course, there was no one there. The shadow did not keep walking in place. There was nothing, no one, not even the presence she was sure she had felt before. Her mind fully caught up to what had happened, and she realized the grinding noise was probably her own breathing, the thudding her pulse. Everything else she couldn't explain, but it had all just been... her brain, dreaming, while she was awake.

It wasn't the first time she'd had the problem - in fact, sleep paralysis like that was fairly common for her, all things considered. What worried her was that she wasn't having a nightmare like she usually did when she woke up and was... unable to wake up.

This was something else. Something that didn't involve being tied down with ropes, and pulled apart. Something that didn't involve continuously running toward a light, a light like a window that someone else was approaching from the other side, and Kirie realized it was a mirror. A mirror she was on the back side of.

She was confused by it, and a little scared. The other dreams were unpleasant, but at least they followed a pattern. This... was nothing of the sort.

Kirie flipped on her light, picked her book back up, and went back to reading for the rest of the night.


	14. Proposals

**Rei Kurosawa and Yuu Asou's Apartment**

Rei sighed, leaning back against the cushion she had set up on the floor in an open space of floor. The first week of classes after summer break was over, and the assignments for her classes had already piled up. Mostly, it was her final photography classes that were giving her the most to do after summer break, while her other classes were more slowly getting back into the swing of being back in session. Between school and the internship, she had taken an almost absurd amount of pictures in the past two weeks, and she was tired from all the traveling and focusing on her art.

As usual, she had a collection of choice photos spread out before and around her, arranged in a way that would flow best from one picture to another in a portfolio, and loosely organized chronologically. Yuu was going to be late - he called ahead and said he'd pick up things to make dinner on his way home, though Rei had protested, claiming they had food.

Rei's face scrunched in thought, and she carefully scrutinized several of the photos. The subject matter was a little darker than what she was used to - most of the assignments the internship and school wanted to see were of lighter, happier subjects, or natural ones with challenging lighting conditions. The most somber pictures she could remember having to take recently were of a set of old Japanese-style manors outside of Osaka nearly a year ago when it was raining. However, the assignment was to make what colors did exist in the dreary gray scene as vibrant and contrasting as possible, so she'd had to filter and wait and photograph in ways that made the thick foliage in the background stand out.

This time, however, her assignment _had_ been to make the scene look artistic and with good lighting and contrast, but dreary or even spooky. Run-down old factories, abandoned or ill-kempt shrines in the forests, burned out husks of houses that no one had bothered to rebuild; those were the things the assignment called for, and Rei found she absolutely _loved_ photographing those things. It was a welcome challenge to adjust her shutter speed and aperture to accommodate for the darker lighting conditions, and then adjust them back or in different ways when she'd walk around a corner and see a corner of the roof caved in, letting in beams of sunlight through the creeping vines that had grown up and over the wall. What was more, there was a sort of solemn beauty in places that had once been touched by humans, but then left for nature to reclaim. She didn't even need to go far in Tokyo to find those things; and there were a few places where the buildings were just so old or badly maintained that if she photographed them just right, between groups of people visiting or walking past on the street, she could give the illusion the building was abandoned.

Photographing sunlight, nature, and groups of people was good and all, but the change had been welcome, and having some time to just be alone with nature was also a relief. It also made coming home and slumping in Yuu's arms in front of the television that much better. She also had a curiosity as to what it was that made her feel that way; something tickled the back of her mind every time she was out in those old buildings, bringing faint shadows of emotions that made her want to smile or even cry when she saw things, even though she had no attachment to the buildings in particular. That alone made them far more interesting than most of her other subjects.

The sound of a key being pushed into a lock, and the door handle jiggling pulled Rei out of her careful concentration, and she looked over in time to watch Yuu come in the room with a couple bags of groceries, saying, "I'm home!"

He smiled sheepishly at her, and she just smiled warmly back, greeting him in turn, then turned back to her photographs with a glance at the clock on the way down. It was getting a little late to prepare dinner, but she wouldn't argue with him even though it would have normally been her turn to cook, and probably would have been a better idea since she had been home for longer.

Yuu didn't say much as he got to work, and Rei continued organizing the portfolio and presentation. She glanced toward the work desk in the corner, and grimaced a little bit; she'd have to scan all the pictures in, as well, to keep things backed up and to present to the teacher and to the class when it came time in a couple weeks. She was distracted, after the sizzling from in the kitchen wafted a different kind of scent than she was used to. She thought they would have something usual, but maybe a little fancier than what they already had in the refrigerator.

She was not expecting to smell beef cooking. _That_ was far fancier than she had expected; and beef was expensive.

"Yuu?" She called, and he turned toward her, a spatula poised over the pan. She raised an eyebrow. "Are... you cooking steak?"

For the second time that night, Yuu smiled sheepishly, and nodded. "I thought I would make dinner a little more special tonight, so it's very western-themed." He motioned toward the counter, and Rei was somewhat surprised to see a bottle of wine - something with a label that made it seem both fancy and expensive - and two glasses sitting on the counter that she hadn't really noticed him setting out. _That_ was especially out of the ordinary.

"That had to be expensive..." Rei mentioned in turn at the wine, trying not to let her tone sound sour, peeling her eyes from the bottle of wine and back toward her boyfriend.

"Well," Yuu chuckled, and scratched the side of his head. "I figured it would be cheaper than eating out at a fancy restaurant."

Rei couldn't very well argue that, but thinking how much the whole affair cost him made her frown. Yuu raised a hand, placatingly.

"It's alright," he sounded quite sure, and smiled. It was only then Rei noticed he seemed... distracted by something, so it wasn't long before he turned back to the stove to focus on continuing to cook with a little _too_ much concentration.

Rei relaxed, and decided to let it go; it was his money, he could do whatever he wanted with it. They weren't married, and he never came up short on money for rent or bills. She could at least trust that he didn't spend too much on something that seemed like was just a normal Saturday night dinner.

A short while later, and he called the meal ready. The scent of the cooking food had Rei's stomach growling embarrassingly for at least ten minutes before the meal was done, so she was more than happy to get up and head for the food.

Yuu had always been a decent cook, but tonight, he had gone above and beyond, Rei noted with some awe. There were small strips of steak laid out neatly on the plate, sided with some color-coded, arranged steamed vegetables, and, of course, a bowl of rice - the only 'normal' looking part of the meal. However, even the rice Yuu had painstakingly ensured was perfectly rounded, and had even topped it off with garnish of a sprig of... something Rei could not identify. Rei was a little afraid to sit down and eat the meal, everything was so carefully arranged.

She glanced at her boyfriend, and he smiled warmly, spreading his hand out to welcome her to the meal. The wine was already poured, and everything was waiting. Suddenly, Rei felt a little suspicious, but she sat down anyway. Did he do something and felt the need to apologize for it? He knew her, though, and also knew she didn't particularly like being pampered as a way to butter her up for apologizing for something, so perhaps it was something else. Either that, or he was spending another two nights on the spare futon.

Rei tried not to let her suspicion color her tone, but she did converse with him with just a note of concern, and could tell her noticed it, as well. It seemed to only make him slightly more nervous, but he kept his own composure fairly well.

When they were finished, Yuu volunteered to do the dishes, as well, and Rei felt more suspicious than ever.

"Did something happen after work today?" she asked, watching as he began scrubbing the pans.

"Not particularly," Yuu replied, focusing on the sink and not turning around. Rei really wanted to walk up to him, grab him by the shoulders, spin him around, and ask him what was wrong, but she held her composure better than that. She wasn't even sure if what he was avoiding her question about was a good thing or not. Maybe he got fired and didn't want to say anything - but the same could be said if he had been given a raise or something of the lot.

"So you decided on a whim to have a dinner this fancy on your way home?" Rei continued, pushing a little more.

Yuu finally turned and smiled at her, in that oddly mysterious way he had when he knew something - they way he described it was that he could _feel_ something off - that she didn't. Rei felt her frown turn almost more into a pout. "After I'm done cleaning the dishes, would you like to walk with me out to the park?"

_That_ was certainly a surprise, and Rei's eyebrows raised at the idea. So maybe he wasn't in trouble of some sort, but it still didn't answer her question.

"Sure," she said, slowly, uncertainly, and he nodded - a bow of his head as much as a nod, and turned back to dishes. Not wanting to stand awkwardly in the kitchen during the silence that followed, Rei turned around and went back to where her portfolio was spread out on the ground. She kneeled down next to it, and began carefully picking the pictures up again, ensuring to keep them in the proper order. By the time she was done picking up the photos, Yuu was rinsing off the last of the dishes, and turned toward her with a bright, if somewhat nervous smile when he was done.

"Alright. Just to the park - I promise we won't be out too late," he said, and Rei nodded, standing and following him to the door. She glanced at the clock on the wall, noting the time - it was almost ten-thirty. She once again didn't try to mention anything, but she couldn't help the knot of nervous anticipation in her stomach. Whatever Yuu wanted to talk to her about, it had to be important. She tried to steel herself mentally as they slipped on their shoes and began their walk. As usual, there wasn't much discussion - Yuu didn't really talk much, after all. It was one of their differences that made things so well-balanced between them, and Rei figured he would speak on his own when he was ready.

They ended up beneath a path lamp at the top of the hill of the nearby park, standing side-by-side. Though it was a relatively late hour, people milled about in the park - couples or small groups mostly, a few louder than others and with members unable to walk straight, likely out enjoying the Saturday night club scene.

Yuu took a deep breath in through his nose, looking up at the sky for a moment, before setting himself forward, firmly. This was it. Rei tensed a little, the knot in her stomach returning full-force.

"I was late because I was speaking to your family," Yuu said, and the knot in Rei's stomach suddenly jumped into her throat. He continued, "Well, I was speaking to your parents, really. We were figuring out schedules and when people were most available.

Yuu swallowed, reaching into the pocket of his pants, and as he did, the sudden realization of what was about to happen collapsed on top of Rei. By the time she saw the glinting, ruddy old gold of an heirloom engagement ring, her heart was already pounding and her mind was already reeling.

"I was thinking," Yuu began, his voice tight. He had to stop and clear his throat briefly, muttering an apology under his breath - and Rei may have been amused that the usually cool and collected Yuu was as nervous as he was if she didn't already suddenly feeling like fainting. "I know we've talked about it before, but I would like to make it official. My family said they would like to get together with yours for dinner, and yours agreed, so it'll be a little old fashioned, but we'll probably have an engagement ceremony, or something like it..." He laughed, nervously. He was rambling in his nervousness, and it was enough to give Rei some time to regain her footing, to clear her spinning thoughts and catch her breath. She was in a slightly more clear state of mind when he continued. "But for now, I was going to ask you, to make sure... Rei Kurosawa... would you marry me?"

He might've expected her to give an exuberant 'yes!', to hold her hand out so he could slip the engagement ring on. What he clearly wasn't expecting was for her to fling herself into his arms, to hug him tight and fierce, almost bone-crushingly so, burying her face in his neck so he wouldn't see the glimmering, joyous tears that had sprang into her eyes. Not caring who saw them there, not caring what happened, she held to him tight and fast, and he heard her voice, tiny, tight, wavering with the tears that even then he could feel soaking into the collar of his shirt.

"Yes... absolutely... yes..."

He smiled, closing his eyes, and folding his fingers back over the ring to hold it for safekeeping as he wrapped his arms back around Rei - around his fiancée.


	15. False Antidote

**Tokyo - Sae Kurosawa's Dormitory**

Sae didn't get mail often. She got plenty of phone calls - mostly her father, calling to check up on her every few days to ensure she wasn't getting too homesick or lonely, living away from home, in a dormitory, without her sister. Mail, however, was not something that she was often recipient of, and it always came as a surprise when she received it.

A carefully packaged box, with a return address she didn't recognize, and a name she didn't particularly recognize, either, but thought looked somewhat familiar. _Reika?_ She frowned, trying to think if that was the right way to read those kanji.

_Reika..._

She turned the box over in her hands again, and the thing rattled a little. The noise suddenly made her stand up straight. That was right! Reika was that priestess she'd met on the street a few weeks back. Sae had forgotten she even asked the woman for anything, but now she knew what the package was.

Taking it to her dorm room, Sae carefully opened the packaging and extracted the talisman. She was actually rather impressed by what it looked like - it wasn't just ink scrawled on heavy paper, this ofuda was carved out of a piece of polished wood. Sae could practically feel the apology radiating from the gift. It made her smile, and almost forget the horrid nightmare she'd had the night she'd first met the other woman, and the unsettled feeling she'd had just being near her.

She was just about to throw out the box when a note that had been placed under the ofuda caught her attention, and she scraped the bottom of the box to pull it out. The message was simple, and it contained the actual words of apology from the other woman, as well as a sentence that surprised Sae: _I have them, too, and would be happy to talk them out._

At the very bottom of the letter was some additional contact information, for both Reika and apparently the shrine Reika worked for. Sae looked the page over for a moment, thought about what it meant, then quietly put the paper near her laptop on her work desk. Maybe she'd get in contact later; there was no way the other woman had put that sentence in there on accident.

The ofuda, however, Sae immediately took to hanging up above her bed. She thought, perhaps, it would be better to hang over her door or near her window, but with as bad as her dreams had been lately, she wondered if it being closer to her bed was not even better than that. Either way, it was worth the try.

Usually, Sae could feel when the nightmares were coming on. It was subtle, but there was an anxiety to all of her day-to-day motions, she thought about her sister a lot, and, what was more, she thought of how empty, how meaningless her life had become without her sister in it. On normal days, she just felt lonely; on nights when the nightmares flared up, she usually was at the point of tears by the end of the day.

Sae was pleasantly surprised over the next several days to not get that foreboding, gnawing anxiety. She still thought of her sister often, and it still made her chest pang painfully - she doubted the pain would ever _really_ go away, but it seemed to be working. When she did dream, at least those dreams she did remember, they were quiet, not very exciting, a little cold, a little lonely, but when she woke up, though she did feel somewhat sad, she wasn't sobbing hysterically into her pillow, wasn't feeling absolutely sick to her stomach from the sight of her sister's limp and prone body, bent at strange angles and unnaturally still.

After a couple weeks, Sae picked up the piece of paper, and her phone, dialing the number written. A nervous anticipation that she usually got in calling someone else tensed in her stomach, and she almost cried in relief when the phone went, eventually, to voicemail.

"Hello Reika. This is Sae Kurosawa, the one you gave the ofuda to. Thank you very much for the gift... it seems to be working. I saw the note you wrote, too... Um, I hope you got one for yourself, as well," she paused, swallowing, trying to think of something else to say next. She didn't exactly know what, but now that the ofuda was working, she almost wanted to talk to the woman again. What kind of nightmares did the other have, she wondered? What caused them? Though, the longer the pause went on, the more awkward it felt, and so, Sae rushed the end of her message. "If-... if not, um, I would be... I would be happy to talk to you... well, I'd talk to you either way. Thank you again goodbye!"

And nearly slapped her forehead when she realized she forgot to leave her phone number, just as the phone screen changed from the end call screen back to her contacts list. Hopefully, the number she had called was a cell phone or something else that had a way to see what numbers called.

She was just about to toss the phone to the side, when it rang loudly and she jumped so badly she dropped the phone on the floor. Muttering a quiet, frustrated word under her breath, she reached to pick it up. Was Reika returning the call that quickly?

No, "Mio Amakura" was displayed on the name of the caller. Sae took a deep breath, and pressed the phone to her ear, picking it up just before the last ring before it went to voicemail.

"Hello, Sae Kurosawa."

"Hey, Sae, it's Mio!" the voice on the other end of the line was a little too chipper for Sae's mood, but instead of railing against it, she let herself try to be uplifted by the energy in her friend's voice.

"Hi Mio. How are you?"

"Ahh, I'm alright," it sounded like a lie. A transparent enough one that even with Sae's despondent mood, she could tell it. Mio continued, though, before Sae could say anything else. "Hey, so, there's a new cafe that opened up in Aoyama, and some of my friends were saying it has some really good food. I was thinking, since we haven't seen each other since almost summer break, we could go there this weekend?"

Sae considered it, for a moment. She wasn't really doing anything this weekend, and her nightmares had more or less dissipated for now. Really, aside from the awkward voicemail she'd left, there wasn't much bad that had happened the last week, even though some part of her still felt a little... down. She could use an outing with friends to lighten her spirits. What was more, it almost sounded like Mio could use the outing more than she could.

"Yeah. How about Saturday?"

"That sounds good. Do you have somewhere to write down the address? We'll meet you there."

After the address was exchanged and Mio and Sae had said their goodbyes, Sae went back to her schoolwork, readying herself for the coming weekend.

* * *

 

Sae shifted uncomfortably, looking around the patio of the cafe. Several young couples and small groups of friends sat clustered around the nearly dozen or so tables along the sidewalk. Only Sae was alone at her table, a sweet, iced beverage sitting before her, perspiration leaking down the side of it. It was a bit late in the season, but the summer heat was clinging on stubbornly. She had originally decided against sitting in the air conditioned café, but the longer she was outside, the more she questioned that decision, as even the umbrella on the table was not providing much relief from the midday heat.

What was almost more uncomfortable, however, was the fact she _was_ alone at the table, waiting for Mio and Mayu to arrive, and unable to do much but watch people pass by in the interim. She knew they would be there eventually, but as long as she had been there - at least long enough for one couple to have already received ordered food, eaten, and conversed afterward for several minutes - that some people were probably watching her, thinking she was alone. It would never have been a problem before. She would've had Yae with her, and they...

"Sae!"

Finally, however, she heard her name called, and turned to find Mio and Mayu wandering up the street. Soon enough, the three were seated at their table, and Sae felt a lot better, a lot less scrutinized.

Mio apologized profusely as they settled in - apparently, she and Mayu had been caught up at a store looking over a new selection of skirts for the winter and they'd lost track of time. The conversation meandered onward, until finally, Sae felt the urge to say something, to fill in a long gap after Mio had spoken about how their Uncle Kei seemed to be delving more and more into his work.

"Well... I ran into someone on the street that gave me a... charm to ward off nightmares," Sae said. She knew the twins knew about her nightmares - that last sleepover those many months ago was not the first time she had woken screaming and would probably not be the last.

"Did you? Who were they?" Mio asked, between spoonfuls of the parfait she had ordered and was sharing with Mayu.

"She was a... priestess for one of the shrines up in the mountains, I guess," Sae said, quietly. She had ordered a sundae, but was more interested in swirling the chocolate into the ice cream and making patterns than actually eating it, it seemed. "Or, I guess she still is. I don't know, her address was out here in Tokyo."

"Oh? Interesting," Mio said.

"Are you sure?" This time, it was Mayu that spoke, looking at Sae like she knew something odd was going on. Sae wondered if the question was really what Mayu was asking or not.

"She's... well, I know her name is Reika Kuze. And other than being a priestess, I... don't know," and suddenly, Sae's thoughts went back to the phone message she had left Reika, saying they could talk if Reika wanted to.

Talk about what, now? Just the nightmares?

Suddenly, Sae felt a little foolish, and wanted to go back and erase the message she had left.

"Are you alright?" then it was Mio's turn again, and Sae looked up from where she had been staring off to the side, feeling her cheeks heat up.

"Yeah... yeah I'm alright. I don't know. She left me her phone number, and I called her to tell her thank you for the charm," Sae replied awkwardly, but left it at that.

Mayu didn't seem to believe her. Mio did.

Sae kept her gaze at Mayu afterward for several minutes, but Mayu didn't say anything, and instead, refused to meet her eyes.

"So, where do you guys want to go after this?" Mio asked, trying to break up the sudden awkward tension. Mayu finally looked away to look at her sister, and Sae looked to the side, trying to think of somewhere new to go, and failing when her thoughts continued to wander.

"Maybe we should just walk?" Finally, Mayu had a suggestion, and it seemed to interrupt Mio right before she said anything, herself.

Sae nodded, but didn't say anything. She was getting the feeling that her down attitude was becoming awkward, but she needed the distraction for the day, and she really did enjoy seeing her friends for the first time in so long.

So they did, until the sun started to go down, visiting various shops, and eventually settling down in a park nearby to the last shop they had visited, the path lights humming and buzzing as they began to flick on. Sae watched the moths flutter around the lights, a can of juice in her hand as Mayu and Mio continued to talk about school. Apparently, there was some kind of controversy around concerning one of the popular third-years having an interest in one of the girls in the twins' class and rumors were flying appropriately. Perhaps it wouldn't have been that large of a controversy if the third-year student hadn't been a girl, herself.

Sae didn't have much to add, barring one odd comment about feeling a little jealous that she didn't care to elaborate upon when prompted. Really, however, she did feel that way - a little jealous of people that could go about, having normal relationships with others, living their lives day-to-day without a gnawing, empty coldness that would never go away. Sae felt she'd never be able to do that, she'd never have someone she'd really love and want to share her life with again. Sure, there was that Itsuki boy from the village; the one who had always been very kind to her, and even more so after Yae had died, but...

... Nothing was her sister. No one could ever be her sister, and no one could ever fill the gap. Still, she was a little jealous, and at the same time, had to wonder, if Yae was alive, if she'd even ever _need_ anyone else like that, either?

A laugh finally caught Sae's attention, because it had come from Mayu, rather than Mio, and Mayu didn't ever seem to laugh much.

"I didn't know you actually _saw_ her," Mio replied, looking a little incredulous. Mayu just smiled back.

"It was on the first day of school. I think the rumor started because she had the same stuffed bear in her bag," Mayu replied, and even Sae felt the corners of her lips twitch up as she tuned back into the conversation, remembering what she had heard from them before. So maybe the whole day hadn't been a waste; Sae did feel better, even thinking about her sister. The moment of melancholy seemed to have passed, so maybe, just maybe, things were getting better.

They spent another hour or so in the park, continuing to talk, and Sae actually paid attention to the conversation for the whole time, surprising both the Amakura twins. When they finally split up, it was with a comment from Mio about not accepting any teddy bears from upperclassmen.

Sae trekked back to her dorm with a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, and slept through the night without even a hint of a bad dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't just have another angsty chapter right after that happy one, so have Sae acting sane and well-adjusted for once.


	16. The Rougetsu Nightmare

**Rougetsu Island - Rougetsu Hall; Room 412**

Her fingers split apart just enough to peek one eye through them, and Sakuya watched little flecks of dust dance about in the rays of golden sunlight pouring in the open window above the bed. The dust would occasionally plume upward, rising and spreading as she sighed, only to settle into a slightly different, twinkling formation as the disturbance passed, and she watched it all. At least, until the light became too painful to look at, and she had to close her eyes against it, closing her fingers overtop to further block the brightness. Luckily, the medication still had her heavily sedated, and though the sharp, aching throb still continued through her head, the pull of blissful sleep loomed just at the edges, waiting for a bit more time for her to edge closer to grab her and pull her under.

Such was her life, and had been since she'd been in the accident as a child. Tests, tests, more tests, and other things as her family poked and prodded her damaged brain, trying to learn the secrets behind human memory and the way things affected it.

A warmth flooded her senses, dulled by the medication, but still welcoming. A dark, indigo color, lapping around her like warm ocean waves around her ankles. A sound in the background, rolling like waves but musical, pleasant, gentle, but somewhat unpredictable, and Sakuya tried to focus on it, but the thought kept slipping from her mind as a darkness from beyond the sea threatened to overtake her, to drown her in sleep.

She was dimly aware of something warm touching her other hand, lifting it, and something else being placed against her side, before the hand was placed on top of it. It felt... gauzy, clothy, but her fingers and actions were sluggish, and the sleep was pulling even harder, so she didn't get the chance to look.

The darkness overtook her as the sea receded from in her mind, pulling outward, called by the moon, and the musical tide rolled out with it.

When she awoke again, the headache was a dull roar, behind her eyes and reaching deeper still from there, but far more bearable. The light didn't hurt anymore, but there wasn't much of it anyway, as the sun had set and the only remaining light coming in was silver bars from a moon she could not see. Sakuya moved her hand and something rougher than the blanket of her bed brushed against her palm, her fingertips, and she sat up just enough to see... a dress, on the side of the bed. It was tiny, just big enough for a doll, and made of dark reds and purples.

Sakuya smiled, and held it up, looking it over. It was both a gift, and a message; she'd be impressed later that Misaki could still sneak into her room under the nose of the nurses, after she'd given the girl another 'stern' talking-to. Still, the dress would make an excellent replacement for...

... For...

She frowned. Which doll was that again?

The name eluded her, and so she stood, ignoring the head rush and the way it made her sway a bit, unsteady on her feet.

Sakuya walked to the dolls as they sat on the shelf, a fixture in this room, and mentally recounted all of the names she could remember, going in order until the right one popped into her mind, and she picked the doll up.

The one named for her mother.

The details seemed to get fuzzier and fuzzier every time she recounted, but just having the doll helped her pull up what little of her memory she still had left of her mother; the warmth, the kindness, a scent just outside of her recollection, but if she smelled it again, she knew she would be able to make the connection.

She wondered how long she had before even that little bit slipped from her, never to be replaced. Or if it ever would.

Already, she didn't remember the details of the one event that every other woman promised she would _never forget_ \- the birth of her daughter. It was gone, vanished, no longer in recollection. She had even seen a video of it; of her holding the squirming bundle in her arms and the affectionate look on her face, even though, now, she had no recollection of it at all. She couldn't remember it, could not remember a thing about the time she had been there, in the maternity ward. She didn't even remember the warmth and affection of having her own baby girl, despite the fact she definitely felt the undeniable maternal love for her child.

Sakuya knew Ayako, and remembered her name, her face, the way she had looked for the past several years. Her issues were not in her current memory, but in her longest-lasting ones. _Anterograde amnesia_ \- it was written on her chart, the few times she saw it as her brother and father had waved it around, and tried to explain it to her. It meant she would have few to no long-term memories, they had told her, that whatever part of her brain moved the memories from short-term memory to long-term memory was broken. It didn't make much sense, but she didn't know the medical details of how a brain worked; she relied on her senses. Still, she knew the effects, and could tell she was forgetting the details of Ayako's last days of high school and acceptance into medical school. They would never return; nothing would ever trigger them again. They would be lost to the void.

She figured her memories of her mother only existed because they had been there before the accident, but even her father and brother could not explain it.

There was one other thing that had, inexplicably, managed to seep through the broken connection between her deepest memories and her most recent ones; a few brief, golden glimpses of memories, of a young, brazen girl entering her room without permission. A girl whom Sakuya had later learned had been diagnosed with her own set of memory-based problems, further exacerbated by a fever that had spread throughout the island, claiming a few lives and putting others very dangerously close to the edge. It was a time when Sakuya herself had been terrified that the high fever would damage her further, make her forget anything else she had managed to remember, for she had been infected with it, as well. She had given the girl one of her dolls before one of the surgeries and tests, both to keep safe, and to commemorate their meeting, despite Sakuya being vaguely aware that some day, she most likely wouldn't remember the time at all.

It turned out to have helped the girl a lot during the surgery and subsequent tests. The tests were always the worst part, Sakuya was well aware; those, the surgeries, the medications. Being so heavily sedated she couldn't see the moon.

Despite her name, the full moon was Sakuya's favorite thing, something she always loved to watch, and she loved it even after she started to realize that the full moon made her have dreams. Sometimes bad, but mostly frightening in a way she could not describe. She learned later that Misaki was far more ambivalent toward it, but she had a hunch that because she liked the moon, so too did the girl.

She folded the dress into the drawer beneath the collection of dolls, and pivoted on the ball of her foot, heading toward the small greenhouse to the side of her room. She took the small watering can as she stepped into the room, sprinkling a bit on the plants that looked as though their soil was drying out, before stopping, and tilting her head back.

From the glass ceiling of the greenhouse, she could see the moon fully, round and cold silver. It brought a little smile to her face, and she swayed a bit, shifting her weight from foot to foot, moving slightly in a tuneless rhythm.

She stopped when a splash of red like fresh blood splattered across her senses, warm, but sticky, seeping, filling the holes and crevasses in her mind. Despite that, though, she could see the light glimmering on the surface of the bloody red color, sparkling. A hum followed, low, like the rapid strumming of a stringed instrument during an intense scene in a movie; something that would make others uneasy, even panicked. Sakuya wasn't too bothered by it, but she had known the presence, the feeling for as long as she could remember, however much that meant. It was a soothing presence, though different from the indigo sea before.

Setting the watering can down, she padded back out to her bed and was just settling back down when the door opened and You walked in. One of the nurses trailed a few paces behind him, holding a tray with a small paper cup of water and a few assorted pills in a plastic container, with a small biscuit in the corner to be eaten with the medication.

Without a word of complaint, and without a word of prompting, Sakuya stood - making the nurse flinch a bit, despite the fact she had neither moved quickly nor was she that much taller than the other woman, and took the medication. The nurse stood stock still and tense; if she wound herself up any tighter, she might've started shaking.

Sakuya relaxed onto her bed once again when she was done, sitting calmly, hands in her lap, and the nurse all but scurried out of the room with the empty tray.

You elected to sit beside his sister until the medicine kicked in, and she smiled warmly at her brother. He pulled out his little flashlight, and took to looking in her eyes, around her head, at the varying scars beneath her hairline.

Satisfied, he combed his fingers into her hair in more of a soothing gesture than the previous searching one, and Sakuya leaned into it a bit.

"I think that's the end of the tests for this month," he said.

"Did you make any progress?" Sakuya asked after a moment, slowly. The medication couldn't have been kicking in yet, so the lazy speech had to be from his hand in her hair.

"Time will tell," You responded, and it was the same as it usually was; noncommittal and evasive. Some day, Sakuya resolved to herself, she would confront him about it, ask him what it was he and their father thought they were doing, what they thought they would be able to accomplish by using her as some kind of guinea pig in all their experiments.

That day, however, would not be soon, seeing as You's hand in Sakuya's hair was infinitely more pleasant than the thought of confronting him, and she had not yet reached the limits of her patience with these things. Other things, yes, but she knew, in her heart, that her brother and father were just doing whatever they could to make her condition better. Or at least, that was what they were telling themselves.

You didn't seem to have anything else to say beyond that, though he did sit with her until it became readily apparent the medication was kicking in once again, Sakuya's body began sagging heavily against his shoulder. She could barely feel the world shift as she was laid on her back, and the warm press of something vaguely damp to her forehead, before the darkness at the edges of her vision converged, chasing the sparkling blood from her mind, letting it seep away into the holes in her memory to drain, and the humming became fainter until it disappeared. She was vaguely aware of a slight crescendo, the familiar rolling, wave-like sound, and an inquisitive inland wave of indigo flaring up, but it was far out, and she could do nothing but watch the sea within her mind lap at the shore beneath the moonless sky, hear the pleasant sound of Misaki's soul in the distance.

The dream continued on from there, and the indigo sea became a lake, the color draining until the color itself no longer meant its original representation, but instead, was a byproduct of the darkened sky, and the sound vanished. Above, the pale moon, a sickly yellow and surrounded by clouds, hung low over a forest.

Sakuya stepped forward toward the lake, her bare feet feeling the sting of cold rocks beneath them, but the rest of her unable to care. At some point, she should've been standing in the water, but as she looked down, it appeared more that she was standing above it. Despite that, the water rippled outward, and as she looked down, the moon distorted on the surface of the lake, and, on her own face.

A cold dread settled in her stomach. The distortion of the water made her face indistinguishable, and though she racked her brain trying to think about it, she couldn't even remember what color her own eyes were. The lake had taken her face, had taken her identity...

Sakuya turned back around, and though she should have once again been facing the shore, now there was nothing but a long hallway, covered in masks. The name of the location was just beyond the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't seem to care anyway. Muscle memory knew where she was going. Slowly, she walked forward. From somewhere in the distance, a high-pitched mechanical keening noise sounded, and the noise rippled through her, disturbing her from the inside out and the outside in. She felt a thread of irritation at the noise, but the scream that followed was, at least, a beautiful sound, cutting, pointed, piercing right into the thick shroud of the mechanical noise.

There was a face before her, a familiar one, but she didn't care. The name wasn't springing to mind, and she didn't care to figure it out, either. Cold fear froze the slowly abating ripples of noise within her, though she didn't know why; something told her she _should_ know whose face, whose presence that was. Yet, she did not.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wanted to scream.

This time, she heard someone before she felt them, and through the high-pitched keening, a flittering, light, thrumming noise came; quick-paced and nervous. This person was afraid of having her around. More mechanical buzzing sounded, grating through her, drowning out the steady, natural rhythm that pulsated from inside her.

Just as quickly, though -

"Come with me," a voice sounded, deep and soothing, calm, gentle, it rolled in like a fog. She knew the voice, the sound that accompanied it, a low, constant hum, so like one she was just listening to what felt like only a short time and yet several long years ago. The presence was very like the voice; a golden fog, the clouds that obscured the moon, tinged with a metallic scent like blood.

Sakuya obediently followed.

The next thing she knew, she was staring at the moon, and it was full, pouring down upon her. The metallic ringing was gone, and she swayed in time with the steady beat that only she could hear.

The noise of a door latch clicking was what finally woke her up, snapping one final loud _click_ to interrupt the natural rhythm, and when Sakuya looked around, jumping at the sound, she realized...

... She was standing in the greenhouse of her room, bathing in the light of the full moon like a lizard beneath the sun.

She turned toward the door - her father must have led her back to her room, but was gone now - to the dolls, where she could hear the faint whispers among themselves that just as quickly died down, to the bed where the blankets had been all but thrown to the side, then back to the full moon.

Sakuya sighed. She really did love the moon, but sometimes, she wondered if it didn't have some kind of curse to plague her soul. She had to dismiss that as quickly as she thought about it, though; she knew what ghosts were - leftover emotions clinging to things of significance in life, sometimes so strongly the living could feel them - she could hear the odd noises of everyone's souls, feel the presence of their minds. But curses from the moon? Those didn't exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look.
> 
> It's the one "ghost" I haven't focused on yet! Only took me 16 chapters.


	17. Premonition

**Tokyo - Miku's High School**

_Someone's outside,_ Miku thought, but didn't look. She didn't sit near a window, and, in fact, had a rather mundane seat near the door-side center of the classroom. It made figuring out what was making her sixth sense tingle, when whatever it was doing it was outside, very difficult. By the time lunch rolled around, she could look out the window, or even go and investigate the school grounds, but never once was she in time to go and see what it was. It was the same kind of feeling every time, though, and it had started to pop up more frequently.

This time, the bell for the next class was going to be ringing very quickly, so she didn't have the chance to get up and go check, even if she wanted to. The next period's teacher had already set up papers and a textbook, and was just going over notes, waiting for the bell to chime.

Miku tried to listen to her classmates as they gossiped about different things happening around school, looking over her notes and homework for the next class that was about to start. Sometimes, some of the other students would talk about strange feelings they had, or odd things they had seen; little, tiny one-off occurrences of things that were a part of Miku's every day life, but she could use the gossip to at least narrow down what was happening to trigger her sixth sense. Today, the rumors weren't very helpful - a popular student apparently having been seen talking to this highly _unpopular_ student, some speculation on a few of the younger and more 'attractive' teachers' private lives, and the most recent topic, about, of all things, the weather. Autumn was settling in, slowly, and the cooling weather meant there were many students talking about last-minute summer-like things they wanted to do before the rain and cold really started.

The subject changed to clearance sales on swimsuits, and Miku stopped listening.

And something drifted gently across her senses like a hand across the back of her neck, again.

She shivered, sitting upright, and looking around. A few of the other students had stopped to watch her, curious, but when nothing else was forthcoming, she sunk back into her chair, muttering an apology and feeling her cheeks heat as the bell rang.

That was definitely on purpose. _Someone_ was there. Someone was there and they knew she was where she was. Was it a call for help, she wondered?

The lesson started, and school continued and ended without any further incident. Several days passed, and then a week, and yet nothing. She mentioned it once, to Kirie, on the train as they sat near each other going in to school, but the conversation was not very fulfilling. Kirie's family had a shrine they maintained, and she was indeed slated to take over as the primary priestess there, but while she probably could have had a sense for the supernatural, she didn't seem to have a strong one.

After that week, the presence returned, again, soft, whispering against the back of Miku's mind. This time, it was close to the end of a period of class, and it seemed to linger for long enough. As soon as the bell signaled the end of the class, Miku stood and quickly left, leaving her notebook and everything else open and ready on the desk.

A brief titter went through the crowd, but most people seemed to have assumed that she needed to use the restroom, and left the explanation at that.

Miku made her way through the corridors of the school, bypassing the restroom and heading down the stairs until she was at the shoe lockers. A few first-year students stared at her as they went past, heading toward the gym, and she heard them whisper among themselves.

The presence was gone again. Miku frowned, her hand resting on the front of her locker as she scanned the front path up to the doors of the school. She didn't see anything there - neither students nor anything... _else_ , so she sighed, and felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her as she realized she had all but bolted down to the shoe lockers for no really good reason. She opened her locker, pretending to do something with it, before closing it and, keeping her head down, walking back up toward her classroom.

She arrived back in class just before the bell rang, and the back of her senses was tickled again. She frowned deeper - normally, she could ignore these things, but it was harder when whatever it was, directed its attention toward _her._

Deciding it wasn't worth the extra effort, Miku made it a point to stare straight ahead at the teacher, trying to keep her face neutral. It worked so well that halfway through the lecture she could feel the teacher become a little uncomfortable, and ended it early to pass out assignments.

The next morning, she found her thoughts still occupied by the sensations that kept eluding her. It was bad enough, even Kirie mentioned it on the morning train, interrupting a vaguely worried train of thought she'd had, talking about a love letter she'd found in her shoe locker.

"Miku?" Kirie's voice was just loud enough to be heard over the clacking of train wheels on the tracks and the rattling thud every time they ran over an imperfection in the rails. Miku blinked and looked up at her friend. She didn't smile, she just simply looked with something of a neutral, blank stare. Kirie continued, a little unsure, "Are you alright?"

The question made her pause and think. Physically, she didn't feel any different. Or at least, she didn't think she did. Mentally, though, she knew she was very distracted. However, rather than worry Kirie about it, she merely nodded. "I'm alright."

Kirie gave her a look that told her she didn't believe it. Miku winced, but kept her gaze down, at her hands. Miku knew not many other people had the ability to see and feel what she could, so it was easier to lie to Kirie about her feelings than it was to lie to her brother. Luckily, Mafuyu had been so busy with work, and some editing that was being done to Takamine's recent novel, that if he noticed his sister's mood, he hadn't made a comment about it.

"Would you rather talk about it after school or off the train?" Kirie continued, unrelenting. Miku shook her head.

"I don't know what it is. But every day at school, someone keeps trying to get my attention," Miku said, finally, quietly. She didn't know if Kirie could hear her over the din of the train moving along, and Kirie did lean in a little closer, but she didn't once ask to clarify.

"Does someone have a crush on you? Don't be surprised if you get a love letter in your shoe locker, then," Kirie said, trying to keep her tone light. She picked up the letter she had apparently been left in her locker sometime between lunch and the end of the day the previous day.

"That's not what it is," Miku replied, and finally looked up from her lap, only to focus out the window opposite to their seats, luckily unobstructed as it was this early in the morning. "They're not trying to get my attention that way, at least, I don't think."

"Oh," Kirie said, and put the letter back down on her bag. "Is it scary?"

"It's..." Miku frowned. It was always difficult to try to explain how her sense worked to people who didn't understand it, and so she usually didn't, but, in this case, she decided she might have been willing to make an exception. "Probably not someone still alive."

Kirie frowned, then tilted her head. "You're being haunted?"

Miku sighed, and shook her head. "It's not like that... or like what the news or stories like to say about ghosts. Even Mr. Takamine is wrong about how 'ghosts' are." She motioned toward Kirie's backpack, where she knew the other girl had a copy of another of the folklorist's stories. "A soul of someone going on after death... that's not quite right. It's more like... a strong, concentrated emotion, or set of emotions, in one area. A lot of times, the strongest ones are from groups of people rather than individuals, but sometimes... someone has an attachment so strong that the emotion alone is... well, I can feel it."

Kirie nodded, enraptured. She had forgotten all about the letter on her backpack. "What does it feel like?"

"It just... feels like emotions," Miku said, absently, tilting her head and furrowing her brow as she recalled the images and feelings of the last time she'd truly been close to a ghost. "But you have a disconnection from them, because they're not your own. Well... I should say, it becomes more dangerous if they do become your own. That's when people become... possessed. But that's so rare."

Kirie's eyes all but sparkled with the curiosity. It was strong enough Miku could feel it from where she sat, but she didn't know how to explain any more than she already had.

"But you said one of them was calling _to_ you?" Kirie asked, finally going over the details in her head. She was the daughter of a shrine keeping family, so in her mind, she had to wonder if she had inherited some kind of sixth sense from her family line, if that was what would make her feel so odd in some places.

"Yes," Miku said, and sighed. "Yes, I think someone is using my sense to call _to_ me."

"But who?" Kirie asked, her mind already drifting to mysteries and other unexplained folklore she had read about.

"I don't know," Miku responded, tilting her head, and then, finally, looking back down at her lap. "Is it someone that thinks I can help? Or was it someone connected to me? They're very insistent, though."

* * *

 

Miku finally had decided to tell her brother the very same thing she had told Kirie on the train ride that morning, and he had patiently listened, and offered his advice. When Miku couldn't tell if the omen was good or bad, he suggested waiting on it a bit longer.

When Miku went to bed, she had a dream, vivid as a movie, but with all the color drained from it. She dreamed she was chasing her brother down a hallway, the sound of ropes and old wood beams creaking in the background, but no matter how close she tried to get to him, the further he would get from her.

It was sad, and when she awoke, she was sobbing, because, despite that she never saw it in the dream, she knew that the end of the chase would come with her finding her brother dead.

That very next day, Mafuyu announced that Mr. Takamine had apparently been personally invited by the Himuro family head to go back to the Himuro manor in the mountains. He hadn't decided when he was going to leave yet, but the implication was that he'd be gone the next summer.

Miku did not know why - she thought Kirie was a very nice girl and that her family was possibly very kind. Perhaps a little strict, but kind - but she had the worst, cold, wet feeling settle in the depths of her stomach at the news.

The next week, when sitting in class, the feeling from outside flared up once, strongly, dangerously, calling back the memories of her dream of chasing her brother down that endless hallway, but as quickly as it had come, the feeling was gone.

The presence didn't return after that.


	18. The First Spur Forward

**Tokyo - Jinbouchou**

Rei looked over the old cameras on display of the antiques shop once again, her left ring finger flexing instinctively between the other two. She wasn't quite used to wearing the engagement ring yet, so she would constantly play with it - often without realizing it.

Yuu really did like old cameras, and Rei liked photography, so every so often, she would take a trip back to this little camera shop, small and out of the way, completely unassuming, to see what they had in stock. It rarely ever changed, but she still liked to look every once in a while.

Today, they had indeed received something new. Rei pondered it over carefully; it was a fairly old accordion-style camera, with faded, burnished metal. She could see where there had been a tear in the accordion fabric that had been patched over at some point, and so she was carefully weighing that option against the price tag she saw displayed below the camera. She had just been paid by her most recent assignment, so she had some extra money, but she wasn't entirely sure.

The little bell above the door of the shop jangled, and Rei ignored it, even as she heard the old woman behind the counter greet the newcomer.

"Good afternoon, Miku, here for more film?"

Rei stood upright, looking over to where the girl was walking in, and immediately smiled. It had been a while since they'd seen each other, she realized. Well, it had been a while since they'd met, really, but she had told Miku that she was particularly busy with school assignments as she reached the end of the year on top of her job. Now there was a wedding to think about, and really, everything had slipped out of Rei's mind.

"Good afternoon," Miku replied, and nodded. "Yes, I'm here for some more film. Did you get any in stock?"

"Yes we did," the old lady continued, with a bit of pride in her shaky old voice, and pointed toward the display with the older types of film. Miku bowed in thanks, then turned, but had to stop when she saw Rei.

Rei gave a little wave, and a smile. Miku returned the smile, briefly, and bypassed the film to walk up to her.

"Hello again, Miss Rei," Miku said, and bowed in greeting. Rei laughed, a little sheepish, and bowed back.

"Hello, Miku. I'm sorry to have to see you by accident like this instead of on purpose," Rei said.

"That's alright. You told me your reasons for it," Miku replied, and shifted a little. She tried for a smile, but it came out a little awkward.

"Oh I don't think it's so alright. I said we should meet up more often and I meant it," Rei continued, and sounded so resolute, Miku looked surprised. However, in thinking about it, Rei felt a small pang of guilt. She still had to have that dinner between the families, there was another assignment for school coming due soon, and she was already in the works for a new contract now that her previous one had ended. "I'd... offer right now, but I have lunch with a coworker in about half an hour."

"You're very busy, I understand," Miku tried to be reassuring, in response, but Rei felt herself becoming more resolute in response. Miku's smile became a little... sad? Rei couldn't tell. "I mean it. I can feel how busy you must be. If you have a free weekend, call me, but don't push yourself too hard to clear your schedule or something."

Rei nodded, resolutely. Miku shifted a bit, tilting to look beyond the older woman. "Are you looking at the cameras?"

Rei turned back to the display, herself, with a nod. "Yes, actually. This one here at the bottom is new. It looks to be in really good condition, aside from where I can see where the accordion part was patched." She pointed, her nail tapping against the glass of the display case quietly. Miku stepped forward and bent over to look at it, carefully.

"It reminds me of..." Miku began, then trailed off, thoughtfully. Rei waited to see if Miku would say anything else, but when the younger woman didn't, she spoke instead.

"It actually reminds me of a camera Yuu has, as well," Rei said, and Miku turned, looking up at her. "His whole family... do you know about the Asou family?"

Miku stood upright, and nodded. "My brother's talked about them a few times. There was a Doctor Asou that was a folklorist and made all sorts of devices for capturing ghosts, right?"

"Yes, exactly that. Yuu has an old camera that looks like this," Rei said, nodding toward the one on display. "I guess I'd have to bring it home to see if they're anything alike, but the craftsmanship, and those old kanji around the lens... I wonder if it's one of the many cameras his ancestor made."

Miku pursed her lips. "We have a camera like this, too."

Rei raised an eyebrow, and Miku shifted a little, then nodded, as though agreeing with herself on something.

"Yeah. We have a camera like one of these old ones. It was... my mother's. She..." Miku swallowed, then frowned, but Rei didn't press. When the younger girl continued on without elaboration, Rei figured it was probably for the best she didn't pry. "Anyway, she had one. She said it lets you photograph things you can't see with the naked eye. If Yuu... ah if he has one that reminds you of this one, and this one also reminds me of ours... maybe it is another one of theirs."

Rei looked back into the case, and nodded again. "I'm just debating if it's worth that price tag."

Miku glanced down at the price tag herself, and winced, then smiled again. "I don't know if it is, either. Are you going to tell Yuu about it?"

"Well..." Rei cleared her throat. "I don't know if I should. We've got a lot to save up for now."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Oh! I forgot," Rei lifted her hand and let Miku catch the glimmer of old gold and the diamond on her ring finger. Miku gasped, and leaned in close, a light in her eye.

"I see! Congratulations," after inspecting it, Miku leaned back and smiled, pleasantly enough.

"And... well, I assume the families aren't going to have anything against it, but we're also saving up to buy a house once I'm done with college," Rei continued.

"I see! Well, congratulations again," the smile remained, and it looked genuine enough on the younger girl's face that Rei was a little surprised. Was this really the first time she'd seen Miku look so genuine? Well, she'd not known the girl for too long, but really, all she ever looked like was... a little sad. Tired, maybe. And jumpy.

* * *

 

Rei returned home without the camera. Because things didn't tend to change at the antique shop very often, she resolved to save up some money after the down payment was made on the house, and they could buy the camera then if no one else had gotten to it first. She didn't tell Yuu about it that night as they had dinner, and instead they conversed over other things.

She didn't sleep well, either.

It started in an old manor she thought she had photographed as part of her last assignment; the one with the old, abandoned houses, trying to make the dark, dank, and desolate look both more, and less so all at once. Inside the house, it was cold and dim, a dreary blue light just making the environment seem even more chill than it was.

She stepped forward on creaking old boards, into a long, long hallway. The air was wet, heavy, and with the temperature was like being buried under an oppressive blanket of snow, so thick it made it hard to breathe, burned the inside of the lungs. The walls creaked, outside, the wind howled, making it sound as though the very building she stood in itself was moaning.

Cautiously, she moved through the house, trying to be careful of her footing - the last thing she wanted to do was step on a board just rotten enough to buckle under her weight. The fact everything was a dream was lost to Rei's sleeping mind.

She walked down the hallway, navigating past a few dressers, and veered toward the right as the hallway split off into a branch. She followed the hallway as it turned, then ended at a sliding paper door. Opening it, she found herself in an odd room. To her right was an alter, before her appeared to be a canopied sleeping area. The sound of a clock ticking came from somewhere, and Rei turned, focusing on the noise, attempting to find out what, precisely it was. She stepped out into the huge area, only for it to shift before her very eyes. No longer was it a wide-open room, but a far smaller one, and in the center of the canopied bed, tied by wrists and ropes to the rafters was a woman with long black hair and a white kimono. Though Rei tried to see the other woman's face, she couldn't see under the fringe of the other's hair, as though her face were purposefully obscured.

The clock remained, however and showed numbers she didn't recognize immediately - old kanji for numbers from before they were simplified. Rei walked back over to try to read the clock. Something wasn't right, though. The clock hands were pointing at 10:30, but the numbers read it as 0:04.

Zero...

Rei frowned.

No, it wasn't zero, it was four after-

_"Help me..."_

Every hair on the back of Rei's neck stood on end, and she felt her whole spine go straight, her shoulder tending and drawing in as though something had touched her on the back. Whirling around, she looked, desperately, to try to find the source of the voice, and saw nothing.

"Help me," the voice was closer this time, and she turned back toward the clock.

Now the hands read just past 8:20, though the kanji read 9 and 9 again...

Something touched her, cold fingers pressing into her shoulders, gripping her flesh with an ironclad hold. Something breathed, hard and labored, into her ear, the cold air rushing past with the vague, sour smell of old decay.

Rei couldn't move. She squeezed her eyes shut against the presence holding her in place.

"And if you can't help me... I'll take them all."

Suddenly the clock started ringing - even though the hands were pointed at somewhere around 3:45, and the kanji read 4 and 3, and through the foggy haze Rei realized that the chiming of the clock was the ringing of her cell phone and slowly Rei was pulled from her sleep. She sat upright, half-terrified by the loud ringing, heart pounding, and fumbled to get her phone open.

"H-hello?"

"Rei Kurosawa?"

The voice was familiar, and Rei turned, suddenly, trying to see what time it was. The moon shone, a bare sliver in the sky, leaving the room oppressively dark. According to the only light in the room, the glowing numbers of Rei's alarm clock on her nightstand, it was almost three in the morning. Stunned, she swallowed, and said, quietly, "Yes, that's me."

"It's Miku," and while normally a call at two in the morning would've irked the photographer, she was just happy to hear a voice on the other line that was human. Human and... sounded just about as flustered as she was. "Are you okay?"

Rei looked around, to her left, she saw Yuu half awake, partially propped up and confused, his hair a mess, and to her right, the whole of the bedroom seemed to be in good order. "Yes, Miku. Is something wrong?"

"I dreamed something terrible happened," Miku said, and Rei felt a cold chill down her spine. "To you. And... to me, as well. I'm sorry... I'm very sorry for calling you at this hour, but..." There was a pause, and Rei used it to sit up in her bed further. "Sometimes... I get feelings, about things. This one was bad, and I think it was about you."

Rei took a deep breath. "I just had a nightmare," she confessed, and she felt a warm hand alight on her shoulder. It made her jump a little, and Miku inquire if she was sure she was alright. She shot an apologetic look over her shoulder at Yuu and stood up, leaving the room so she could continue the phone conversation without keeping her fiancée up any longer than she had to.

"I did, too," Miku said as Rei closed the door behind her. "Where... where were you in the nightmare?"

"It was a big room with a clock on the wall. Something... or someone... grabbed me while I was trying to read the kanji on the clock. I think."

"Did they say anything?" and the earnest question made Rei's blood cold once more. Did they have the same dream?

"Yes, it said... if I can't help it... her? I think it was a woman. If I can't help her, she'll 'take them all'," Rei said.

Miku was silent on the other line, and Rei let her think as she made her way to the kitchen to put some hot water on. Tea would help calm her and thaw the frozen fear within her gut.

"That's not what it said to me," Miku said. "It said... 'if you can't help me, you'll watch them die'."

Rei froze, nearly dropping the teapot as she was about to put it under the stream of water from the tap.

"And I saw someone laying on the ground. She looked like you, Rei. Except..."

"Except?"

"You've never had long hair, have you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The clock thing is a bad English attempt at Japanese kanji play. I will give those reading a hint: four and nine are unlucky numbers in Japanese, and the kanji for 'zero' should be obvious that it can also mean something else.


	19. The Second Spur Forward

**Nightmare**

Mayu had nightmares more often than she admitted to. Sometimes, Mio could tell that she had them the previous night, most often she could not. It was vivid tonight, though. In Mayu's nightmares, she was always _following_ something. A silhouette, almost like her sister, moving away from her. Abandoning her... _leaving her alone again._ Sometimes, it was little lights, flitting to and fro with the restless, carefree ease of butterflies. Sometimes, she followed her father, or her mother; she knew their presences were there - they always had been.

She found herself in a forest this time, carefully navigating around the trees, her bad knee throbbing with sharp, sudden pains on every step and a dull ache every time she tried to shift her balance to her other foot.

She was following a crow that appeared to be chasing a butterfly. Crows were ill omens, but in this world of dreams, she had no choice but to press forward, to press onward and continue after it until she figured out what it wanted to tell her. What omen it was bringing. The butterfly looped, the crow lashed out and missed, and Mayu let out the breath she held at the exchange, then continued hobbling onward.

Eventually, through the woods, she found the steps to a shrine, with a proud, tall red torii at the top. The distraction of the suddenly familiar sight made her lose sight of the crow and the butterfly, though in the distance, then echoing all around her, she heard the crow caw. With the two she had been after out of her line of sight, Mayu turned and began the slow, careful process of climbing the steps to the shrine with a bad knee. The higher she got, the more she realized that she was hearing something rhythmic, musical, and as she peaked the top of the stairs, she saw someone spinning, arms outstretched, with the sleeves of a kimono trailing behind her like flags or ribbons.

Suddenly the person stopped, pirouetted once, lost balance, and collapsed into a heap. The area became impossibly bright, as though the moon was full and then some, glaring like the sun down, but keeping everything bathed in frigid silver light. Looking beyond the collapsed figure was a shrine, but not any shrine she'd ever seen before.

Suddenly the crow from before cawed from near her, and she had to twist and duck - eliciting a cry of pain as she pivoted on her bad knee and made the sharp stab of pain flare from her knee all the way up into her hip. Wings _whooshed_ past her, and the crow flew by, the little butterfly caught in its black beak. It alighted atop the roof near the entrance to the shrine. Mayu wanted to get up, to see who was collapsed at the front of the shrine, see what the crow really was, but was frozen in place, paralyzed by pain and by something else, as though her very own body was betraying her to hold her in place.

The crow started cawing, loudly, as it trapped the dead butterfly beneath a talon, and all around, through the forest, other crows cawed, louder and louder and louder, until Mayu wanted to clap her hands over her ears just to help drown out the sound, but though she fought, her body would not move.

Then, over the din of the crow's cawing, a human voice sounded. Female, perhaps a young adult - not a girl, not an aged woman - and she spoke from right next to Mayu's ear. Even though the sound was deafening, her words were as loud as if the woman was speaking to Mayu in an empty, quiet room.

_"Help me._ "

Mayu tried to answer, but all that came out was a strangled sob. She saw a hundred dead bodies laying around her, suddenly, then flashed back to the shrine. She saw a dozen faceless people with masks, closing in around her. Then she was back at the shrine.

The crows' cawing stopped suddenly.

"And if you can't help me... You'll have nothing left."

Mayu began to cry.

* * *

 

Mio snapped awake to the sounds of Mayu sobbing on her side of the bedroom. The chill aftereffects of a nightmare she could scarcely remember, even now, faded from her mind, leaving her stomach a pit of cold anxiety. Turning over, she sat up quietly in bed, and quietly called out her sister's name. When Mayu didn't respond immediately, Mio thought, perhaps, her sister was still asleep. She carefully navigated over to her sister, the room chokingly dark, stifling. Even if she opened the curtains, it was nearly a new moon, and so there'd be little light from the outside to help anyway. Carefully, she knelt by Mayu's bed, and shook her sister by the shoulder. A squawk of panic escaped her when she was suddenly grabbed and pulled into a tight hug.

"If you can't help me... if you can't help me..." Mayu blinked up at nothing, staring at the ceiling, eyes dull and empty. "If you can't help me... if you can't... help me, then you'll have nothing left."

"Mayu?" Mio questioned, and watched as tears fell from her sister's eyes.

"It was..." Mayu was interrupted with a sob, and then another, and then another, until it sounded like the racking, giggling sobs they'd only heard coming from Sae the one night she'd had a nightmare. "It was... something. Something is happening. I don't know what."

Mio felt her jaw hang open.

"I think something is going to happen to them," Mayu continued, without pause.

"Them who?"

"I don't know who, but whoever it was... they said..." Mayu choke-giggle-sobbed again, and held Mio tighter. " _Them._ "

Mio frowned, but wasn't sure she would be able to get a good answer out of her sister.

"We... should... we have to. We have to help," Mayu said, then froze up, body going tense.

Mio felt panic suddenly rise into her throat. "Mayu!? Mayu, what's wrong!?"

"I... I don't know," Mayu cried, again, voice shaking. She started laughing. "I... don't know. I don't know what's happening. I don't know at all... But we have to help. I have to help. I have to save her, I have to help, I have..."

Mio did what she could to keep a good hold of her sister, trying to think up anything at all that she could do to help. She tried to rack her brain to think if she had been having a nightmare before, and while the fear lingered on in the back of her mind, the details were already faded like a morning mist cleared by the sun.

"It'll be alright, Mayu. We'll help... whoever that was," Mio said, and Mayu seemed to relax, suddenly. Mio's heart leapt into her throat again, as the sudden change in her sister's demeanor set her on edge once more.

A long moment passed, with Mio looking at Mayu's face. It seemed like she had fallen back asleep, and was breathing slowly, peacefully. The grip around Mio relaxed enough that the twin could extract herself from her sister's embrace, but that didn't stop the fact her heart was pounding so hard she could see the edges of her vision pulsing with every beat.

"Mayu? Are you... alright?"

No response. Again. Mio frowned - her sister had just been awake, right? She hadn't been imagining things, right?

She reached down, nudging her sister's shoulder with her fingertips once more. Mayu stirred a bit, but didn't move. Mio pursed her lips and tried again.

Finally, Mayu snorted, once, and her eyes opened. Though it was remarkably dim in the room, her eyes focused immediately and fully on Mio.

Mio swallowed, nervously, wondering what in the world had just happened.

"Mayu, are you alright?"

"Mio?" Mayu asked, and began to sit up. She paused, then reached up to wipe a tear from her eye. Frowning, Mayu held her hand out in front of her, focusing on the tear perched on the side of her finger, before it finally dripped down the side, streaking to the bottom. "Is something the matter?"

"You... weren't you just awake?" Mio asked. "You said something about needing to save 'them'."

"Them?" Mayu repeated, and frowned, wiping her finger on her bedding, and sniffling in a breath to keep her nose from running. "Them who?"

"You wouldn't tell me them who," Mio said, brows knitting in confusion. What in the world was this? Was she not just talking to Mayu before? "You had a nightmare, I think. Remember?"

Mayu looked around, from Mio, to the rest of the room, then looked back and Mio and shook her head.

"I only remember a shrine in the woods, and someone dancing in the really bright moonlight."

Mio looked over to the window; still, there was no moonlight coming into the room. The only real illumination came from the clocks, the charging lights of their cell phones on their chargers, and the red standby power light of the television in the middle of the room on the small dresser.

"Nothing about having to save anyone?" Mio ventured, and Mayu frowned.

"Wait... maybe. Someone... someone spoke to me... but... what did they say?" Mayu's face scrunched up in thought. Finally, she turned to Mio, and shrugged.

"I don't know. I think someone said something, but it was in a dream," Mayu finished, and Mio wanted to fall over as the tension spiked, and then flooded out, completely unfulfilled.

Standing, Mio shook her head. "It's alright. I'll just... forget I heard it. I think you were talking in your sleep again."

Mayu fidgeted and looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry, Mio. That means I woke you up, didn't I?"

"It's alright," Mio assured. "I think I was having a bad dream, too."

"Do you remember what it was about?" Mayu asked, sitting up a bit in her bed to better face her sister. Mio shook her head.

"I don't remember at all," and Mio sighed.

Mayu looked around for a minute, then scooted over in her bed. "I know Uncle Kei gets weird about this, but..."

Mio raised an eyebrow, surprised, but still, the cold dread that had settled within her didn't seem to be going anywhere, and what was more, Mayu needed her.

Nodding, Mio pushed herself into the bed, turning to her side as she tried to fit on the remarkably small bed for two teenagers, and didn't say or do anything when she felt Mayu's hand twine fingers through hers. Perhaps now they'd have a decent night's sleep.


	20. The Third Spur Forward

**Tokyo - Hotel**

Misaki rubbed her eyes, hard, until she could see little dancing yellow spots weave like a honeycomb across her vision, then settled one hand in front of her chest, pressing against it as though trying to physically soothe her pounding heart.

"'Help me or no one will care about you again'," she mouthed to herself, the last words that were still echoing through her mind from the nightmare. This was different than the other nightmares; far more vivid, far more _real._ There was a threat woven into the voice, and it was one Misaki was afraid would carry over, even if for a moment after waking when everything was still so fresh in her mind.

She turned on her hotel bed, but saw only her mother across from her, sleeping peacefully, breathing even and steady and undisturbed. She turned back toward the window - she always took the bed near the window - and glanced out of the partially opened drapes. She always kept the curtains a little open as an old habit from Sakuya, in order to let the moonlight in. Tonight there was barely any moonlight anyway, due to the coming new moon, so the only thing leaking in was the unnaturally white light from the city below, occasionally tinged with pink or pale blue as other lights joined it.

Luckily, Misaki realized, she hadn't been up and sleepwalking. If it was anything like the last time, she would not have been so lucky; Sakuya was not there to save her from falling off anything. Sakuya was back on Rougetsu, hopefully sleeping peacefully and not at all plagued by the same nightmare that Misaki had been.

But then, she never was sure, because she could have sworn it was Miya there, holding her upright as she saw that hanging body flash before her...

Misaki closed her eyes again, and rubbed them once more, trying to clear the image. She'd never seen anyone hang themselves except in movies, but something about it seemed so _real,_ so... like she had stumbled into the aftermath of a real death.

Gods, but she never wanted to experience anything like that in her life again.

She looked over to where the little green dot on the nightstand indicated that her phone had fully charged, and climbed across the bed as quietly as she could, wrapping her fingers around the familiar plastic and glass, debating against taking one of the room cards and stepping out of the room for a moment to call Sakuya. She wished she had brought Miya, but she hadn't thought of it, despite the fact, now, she realized she probably could've used having the doll on her.

No... she wasn't about to go to a family dinner with her _doll,_ she was older than that. She really needed to outgrow that, to become better than needing a doll as a safety net.

Except... she knew. She knew why she kept it. It was more than just a doll, it was probably the strongest link she had to her big sister. To Sakuya. That doll had been more than just a doll - it had been the doll to which Sakuya had given her name originally. When Sakuya was still terrified of the memories that she was losing, that one day she would forget her own name. When that damnable fever spread through the island and left some people with fevers so high it had harmed them all, forever.

She'd been a patient, then. She hadn't thought about it at the time - she had been a child, such forethought had never even crossed her mind - but now that she was older, she realized why it was so important. Maybe that was what had been giving Miya her significance.

Misaki sighed, letting her fingers caress the plastic of the phone a moment longer, and then set the phone aside.

No, she couldn't do that. She couldn't rely on anyone like that, either. Not at the moment...

Then her phone suddenly buzzed in vibration and made her jump, and made her mother's breathing hiccup momentarily, before returning to normal. Frowning, she looked down at the illuminated screen and the number, and part of a text message.

It was from Ruka.

She picked up her phone, navigating over to her messages.

_I think something weird is happening._

That was it, that was the message. Misaki pursed her lips.

_Did you have a nightmare, too?_

She sent the message, then flipped the phone shut, staring out the window and what little she could see at the lights spread out across Tokyo below. The phone buzzed again a few minutes later.

_Not that I remember. I just know something feels wrong. Are you alright?_

Misaki tilted her head. Ruka had a sixth sense, too, even if it was weaker than Misaki's. It was part of her heritage, most likely, because there was a long line of shrine maidens from Rougetsu that had dealt with the services of the dead. Ruka was probably the most direct descendant from them, though talking to just about anyone on the island revealed most people could trace roots back to that family - even Misaki herself probably had some of the blood for it, and she _knew_ she came from a family of outsiders originally.

_I'm fine. I can't say the same for whoever it was I saw in my nightmare._

Misaki fidgeted with her phone as she waited for the reply.

_Did someone die?_

_Yes, but no one I know. She was a younger girl, with short black hair, cut chin-length. Do you know anyone like that?_

_You're the only one I personally know that matches that description._

Misaki frowned, then rolled her eyes. _Well obviously it wasn't me. She was wearing a white burial kimono, so that doesn't help._

The wait was just long enough Misaki could all but feel Ruka's trepidation in saying something. _I could probably name a half dozen girls at my school and around that match that description, too._

Misaki tilted her head, knitting her brow as she thought of how to rephrase the description, then realized she couldn't remember any of the real details of the girl's face. _Well it doesn't matter, I'm already forgetting some of the dream._

_Just so long as you're alright._

_I am._ She paused, fingers lightly tapping on top of the buttons to say 'and I want to call big sister', but ultimately decided against it. Between feeling Miya in her dream, and Ruka texting her afterward, she felt far calmer than she probably would have otherwise. Besides, she didn't want to admit how scared she'd been before she woke up, how much she really wanted to just talk to Sakuya to hear her speak.

_Don't go chasing after anyone you see with that description, either, Misaki._

Misaki snorted, offended. _I am here to watch my cousin get the formal blessing from his and his girlfriend's family to get married._

_You also have a hard time stopping yourself when you get going._

_I am NOT going to do anything stupid, Ruka, I'm here for two days and a dinner._

_Please don't make me have to be the one to tell Sakuya you're in trouble._

Misaki felt her heart thud hard, and her stomach clench as her throat tightened. Getting in trouble with her mother was one thing - she was used to that. Her attitude of late had made her rub a lot of girls the wrong way, and it had resulted in a few calls home.

Sakuya on the other hand... she got disappointed. It was so, _so_ much worse when she could acutely _feel_ the exact magnitude of her disappointment. She only ever felt it with her mother when she did something to really make her mother embarrassed, and it was cowing enough. It was a different matter entirely with the link she shared with Sakuya.

She also realized, that by saying that, Ruka was hitting below the belt. Unfortunately, it was a dirty trick that would always work.

_I won't, Ruka._

_Good night, then, Misaki. Let me know if anything weird does happen._

_I will. Good night._

Misaki turned her phone off for the last time, pondering over Ruka's words. Sometimes, Ruka had premonitions that neither she nor Sakuya did. She didn't know what it was, but even though Ruka's sixth sense wasn't as strong as hers or Sakuya's, something about her intuition was stronger. Or maybe it was her heritage as one of the shrine maidens. Misaki never had figured it out, and she wasn't entirely certain she wanted to. All she knew, was that when it came to strange premonitions, Ruka had some odd ones, but they were usually... well, not entirely inaccurate.

Misaki tossed the covers back on the bed, and settled herself back under them again, on her side, staring out the window, thinking about the conversation she'd just had with Ruka. What in the world was that supposed to mean?

* * *

 

They met in a huge, newly built, but old-fashioned style Japanese restaurant in the heart of Tokyo. Almost two dozen people from both the Kurosawa family and the Asou family met in one reserved, private back room, where they met, ate, laughed, drank, and enjoyed the company. Misaki, of course, had immediately set up her place where she could observe Yuu's fiancée from a good distance, but keep a watchful, steady eye on her.

The woman looked a little tired, but otherwise seemed pleasant. She seemed very happy, as well, which was all Misaki could ask from her cousin. She trusted Yuu to be a good person, because he was in her opinion, but still, if there wasn't a good compatibility, then his fiancee would not look happy. But the woman not only looked happy, she _felt_ it, though her eyes drooped a bit, heavy from what was some kind of lack of sleep - and Misaki had the sudden inkling to ask Rei if she'd had a nightmare the night before. It wasn't the occasion for it yet, though, so she sat quietly through the dinner.

Overall, she approved of the arrangement. She hadn't been entirely sure what to think of the woman when they'd met at the dinner hosted by the folklorist. Now, though, she could say, Yuu had found a good partner, and, if she knew her cousin and his fondness for doting in his own, quiet way, Rei had found a good partner, as well. Both families in general seemed to concur, as well.

Finally, as the dinner was winding down and some of the elders were making their way toward the cars, their beds calling them, aided with the sleepy call of the alcohol that had been consumed, Misaki made her way over to the bride-to-be and sat next to her, waiting for her turn to talk.

Rei seemed surprised when she turned and Misaki was not only sitting there, but also didn't seem to have quite the judgmental, intense stare as before. There was still an impossibly knowing _look_ to her eyes, but it wasn't as much as before.

"Misaki, right?" Rei asked, and bowed in greeting. Misaki bowed in return.

"Yes, that's me."

"Yuu has told me quite a bit about you," Rei began, and Misaki smirked. Rei seemed a little surprised by the look.

"I bet he said I'm his favorite cousin, right?"

Rei's eyebrows pushed just a bit further upward in her surprise, and she nodded. "Yes, actually."

"I know," Misaki said, sitting back a little. Rei's eyebrows then fell, and furrowed.

"Don't worry about what that means. We both have a lot of similar interests, and we're both more directly related to Doctor Asou," Misaki said. "In fact, it was on my home island he made his final home."

Rei nodded. "So you're probably one of the most directly related to him?"

"Well, it's easiest for me to figure it out because of how well they keep records on Rougetsu," Misaki said, and shrugged. "But I guess no one is really 'more related' to him than the others, as long as they have the Asou last name."

"I suppose so," Rei said. Something about her demeanor was telling Misaki she was being difficult to talk to, again. She didn't even need to be able to feel Rei's emotions to know that.

"Well, anyway," Misaki continued. "I know my opinion isn't really regarded as strongly as the elders' - especially my aunt's, but..." She bowed her head. "For what it's worth, I think you two look very happy together. I pray your marriage is long, healthy, and successful."

"Thank you, Misaki," Rei replied, and her smile was very kind and genuine. "It actually means a lot to me. I know you're not the decision-maker of your family, but you _are_ Yuu's favorite cousin, and I would hope the people he likes the most would also be ones to approve."

Misaki felt herself smile, a slow, but genuine smile. That was really what she wanted to hear.

They spoke a little bit more, and Misaki learned more about Rei - that Rei was a photographer, Misaki already knew, but she learned a bit more about Rei's photography style, and learned that Rei had something of a fascination with old, run-down, abandoned, and damaged buildings. Misaki quietly joked that she guessed she wouldn't be needed to go on the 'adventures with the boys club' as she called it now that Rei could take all the pictures of the graveyards for her, and it was such an odd joke that Rei honestly laughed. It changed her perspective on Misaki, a bit. Misaki was still a quiet and intense teenager, but she definitely had her moments.

Dinner wound down with Misaki leaving Rei to talk to Yuu for another few minutes, and then she and her mother, along with the engaged couple, decided to head out, as they were the last few left at the table by then.

On the way out the door, Rei froze, suddenly, pausing mid-stride and in the midst of an explanation of something relating to cameras - Rei had mentioned the camera she found earlier in the antique shop and Misaki was explaining how to tell if it was an Asou camera - when something caught her attention. So sudden did she stop that Misaki and Yuu tried to look on to where she was looking.

There was a woman across the street, waiting at a bus stop, looking around the city as though someone in the area for only the first time. She paused at some point, as though feeling eyes on her, and turned, locking gaze with Rei. Rei backed up, suddenly, as though struck, just as a bus rolled up to the stop, obstructing the view.

Blinking, Rei turned from the woman across the street, to Misaki, who looked quite thoughtful, to Yuu who looked rather concerned, back to the bus, as the bus' engine rumbled into a higher RPM range, and began to move.

The woman looked just like Rei. With longer hair.


	21. Red String, Pt. 1

**Tokyo - Junsei Takamine's Office**

Kei trudged into the office with his feet all but dragging along the carpeted floors, and when he arrived at his desk, he flopped into the only somewhat comfortable desk chair. He was nearly late; an anomaly for him, but he couldn't help sleeping through both snoozes on his alarm.

"Long night?" It was Mafuyu who spoke, motioning toward the coffee pot in the corner. It had already been both brewed and half emptied by the time Kei got there, and he knew most of it was in with Junsei Takamine himself.

"Yes..." Kei said, trying to think how to phrase it, then sighed. "I got home late last night and... Mayu hasn't been sleeping well, and it keeps waking Mio up as well."

A thoughtful hum was his response, and Mafuyu and Kei both turned as a door to the back opened and Yuu strode out, a file in his hand. He looked about as tired as Kei felt.

"I think my sister's been having a hard time sleeping as well," Mafuyu continued, his eyes watching Yuu and the book. "She called someone the other night."

"That was Rei," Yuu said, suddenly looking up from his book. "We were woken up by the phone ringing. At least I'm pretty sure it was Miku that called."

"Ah... sorry. My sister sometimes does things without completely thinking them through," Mafuyu bowed his head, trying to be as apologetic as possible that his sister had inconvenienced his coworker. Yuu just gave a sympathetic smile.

"It's alright. I think Rei was having a bad dream, as well," Yuu said, holding up a hand to stop the imminent wave of apologies. "Waking her up was, while jarring, probably a good thing, in the end."

"Which night was this?" Kei asked, peering over at his coworkers after a lazy roll of his head.

"Let's see... the night before the engagement party..." Yuu frowned. "So, Friday night."

Kei frowned, and looked at Mafuyu, who seemed to frown as well, then spoke, "That was the night Mayu started having the worst of her dreams. She'd had them all weekend."

"Hm," Mafuyu pursed his lips in thought. "That was the night Miku called, but she's so quiet I don't know if she's awake most of the time or not. I don't know if she kept having the dreams."

Yuu placed the folder down on his desk and sat, ignoring it for the moment. "All of them on the same night... but did you guys dream of anything that night?"

Kei shook his head. "Not that I remember."

Mafuyu shook his head as well. "I only remember waking up when I heard Miku talking to someone."

Yuu drummed his fingers against the desk for a moment, then shrugged and turned back to his work. "I wonder if it's an odd coincidence."

"That all of them had a dream like that?" Kei responded. "But Miku and Rei have never actually met the twins, have they?"

Mafuyu shook his head again, and looked to Yuu who seconded the motion.

"Then, the only way they're connected is through us," Kei waved his hand. "It can't be more than a coincidence, I think."

"Did someone say coincidences?" And this time, it was Junsei's voice that carried across the small, cramped office, catching all three of the other mens' attention. "What have we learned about coincidences in this line of work?"

Yuu's pained smile returned. "That there aren't any."

Kei laughed. "This seems too random to really be connected, though. The only way it would be weirder is if someone who didn't even live in the town was having the nightmares, too."

"Precisely. I think we've got another mystery we're just waiting to solve," Takamine replied, and his eyes glimmered. His personal assistant, walking out of the closed-off office behind him, was struck with a strangely fearful look.

Yuu tilted his head. "Did Mayu or Miku say what their dreams were about? Well, I think I got an idea of what Miku's was about when she called Rei."

Kei shook his head. "I didn't ask. I just found Mio in Mayu's bed the next morning. Neither of them seemed to want to talk about it." The memory was a little odd, of course, because he wasn't always a fan of coming into their room to see them so close. He loved his nieces, but he wasn't blind to the fact Mayu seemed a little too attached to her sister sometimes.

Mafuyu raised an eyebrow. "Something about a woman that looked just like Rei?"

Yuu nodded. "That's not what Rei said she was dreaming about though. She said something about a younger, long-haired girl in a white kimono and a clock."

The glimmer in Junsei's eyes did not abate when he stepped further into the office, and Kei grabbed Mafuyu's eye, trying to get his exasperation across. It seemed to go rather nicely, but Mafuyu's expression didn't change much. Mostly because he didn't want to seem rude to his employer.

"When you're done here today, since we're so close to the publish date on the book, I want you all to ask those ladies what it was they dreamed about," Junsei continued and poor Yuu, with that obviously pained smile, was right beneath his gaze.

Kei had to bite back the urge to laugh, no matter how serious the situation was, watching the other man under fire from Takamine was always an amusing proposition.

All three of the men nodded, and again tried not to laugh as Junsei's personal assistant let the smallest, but most exasperated sigh.

 

* * *

 

Asking the girls to recount the nightmares turned out to be something of a challenge. Miku seemed reluctant about recalling any details, Mayu claimed she couldn't remember much, and Rei simply stated she had said all she could recall of the dream.

Because of that, Yuu had a thought, striking hard at him in a terse moment of silence as he pawed through the research documents at his station in the apartment while mulling over Rei's revelation; after all, it had been right after the engagement announcement dinner that the group had seen a woman who looked just like Rei with longer hair. Neither Yuu or Rei had their cameras on them at the time, so there was no way to know for sure, but Misaki had seen it as well, and maybe between the three of them, they could figure out if there was a connection to the woman that Miku had seen inside her dreams. Maybe they could then also figure out if there was then a connection to the woman that Rei had seen, and then, again, maybe to whatever it was Mayu had seen, but was unwilling to talk about. 

Yuu gently suggested that Rei take an afternoon to have some tea with Miku, or something of the sort, while at the same time, he planned to call Misaki. After all, Misaki had been there when the three of them had been struck by the strange woman that had looked so familiar, boarding the departing bus across the street.

However, as Rei left for the afternoon, and Yuu spoke to Misaki, organizing his notes, he received a portion of conversation that left him stunned.

"Yes. Well, we're investigating a series of strange dreams that some people we know have been having lately," he began, and Misaki had gone oddly quiet on the other end. "Miku - that's... Mafuyu's younger sister - claimed she had seen a woman in her dreams that looked like Rei with longer hair. We all saw a woman that more or less fits that description at the dinner, correct?"

"... Yes," Misaki breathed, but she sounded off-balance, and Yuu immediately felt a lump rise in his throat.

"Is something the matter, Misaki?" He asked, concerned. She didn't suddenly get like that unless something was triggering her sixth sense, or she was seriously bothered by something that was said.

"Did... did the person in the dream say 'help me' a lot?" was all she asked, and Yuu was suddenly hit by the thought that maybe, just maybe, Misaki was having the dreams, too.

"Misaki," he stated, calmly, and he heard her make a little noise on the other end. "Have you been having strange dreams lately?"

He heard her take a deep breath, and sigh, and knew that, at the very least, some part of her had gone back to normal. "Yes."

Suddenly, Kei's words rang back - _"The only way it would be weirder is if someone who didn't even live in the town was having the nightmares, too."_

Yuu swallowed against the lump in his throat that had wound itself tighter, and grimaced at the aching pain that spread through his neck at the gesture.

"Yuu?" Misaki tried, and Yuu realized it was not the first time she'd used his name to get his attention.

"... We have a problem, Misaki."

He heard her huff a hard sigh. "I could have told you that."

"Was your dream the night before the engagement party?" he asked, tentatively, not wanting to believe it.

"Yes," Misaki replied, and her voice went tight, strained. "I woke up, and I think Ruka did, too. She texted me right after I woke up."

Yuu pursed his lips, hard. Usually, chasing urban legends and folklore like this would be right up his alley, and he'd be very excited to do it. Right now, he just felt miserable - this was far _too_ close to home, and so very eerie, besides.

"Misaki, I need you to do me a favor," he said quietly after a moment. "I need to talk to Miss Haibara."

"Now?" She asked, and he could hear the thoughtful frown in her voice.

"No. Not now, but soon. Very soon," He replied, and looked over the notes that he'd taken on the events thus far.

There was a moment's hesitation, and then she sighed again. "Alright. How about this weekend? I think she's usually free on the weekends."

"That will work. Thank you Misaki," He said, and they gave their goodbyes shortly afterward.

Yuu sat at the table, fiddling with his notes some more, but not really writing down any of the many thoughts racing through his head. On the one hand, telling Mafuyu and Kei seemed like the right thing to do, but on the other hand... pursuing it at Takamine's behest just felt so _wrong._

Rei returned a few hours later, and she seemed pale as she walked in the door, closing it, then leaning against it heavily, not even bending to take off her shoes in the small entryway.

Yuu poked his head around the corner, then stepped fully out into the entry hallway when he saw how pale she looked, so rattled and shaken. It was the same look, he realized, she had when they had seen that eerie doppelganger the other week.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, quietly, and when she didn't respond, he continued, "Rei...?"

She sighed, and pushed off from the door, removing her shoes without a word and walking up to him. Without saying anything she all but collapsed into his arms.

"Was the dream Miku had that bad...?" He asked, after a moment of letting her settle into him, not minding supporting the extra weight at the moment at all.

"No," she replied, heavily, after a moment of thinking it over. "Well, it was a bit graphic, from what she recalled, but that's not it."

Yuu squeezed her once, then let go and motioned to move further into the apartment. "Do you want some water?"

"Yes," Rei responded, her voice still thick, and she meandered like a lost soul over to the center of the living room, where she plopped down on the floor and leaned against the table. She seemed both troubled by something, and, at the same time, still trying to work through her thoughts, so Yuu took a moment longer than was strictly necessary to draw some cool water from the tap, then return to her with the glass. He sat to the other side of the table, and watched her quietly, waiting until she was ready to speak.

"Miku has a friend," Rei began, and for a moment, Yuu prepared himself for Rei to say something along the lines that the friend was invisible, or something. However, that was not the case, and she sighed, collecting herself again. Obviously, whatever had happened, she pushed off the reaction to until she was home, and it was all piling on her now. "No, let me start again. Miku had a dream about a woman that looked like me, but seemed to be covered in bruises or... some kind of tattoo or something."

"Ah, hang on," Yuu said, and jumped up to go get a notepad and pen to write down her tale. Rei nodded, but continued to stare absently at the rim of the glass. When he seated himself once more, she took another drink of the water, and a deep breath after.

"Miku said it was like swimming through water, how slowly everything was moving. Or maybe... it was because it was cold? She wasn't sure," Rei tilted her head. "All she knows is that there was a woman who looked remarkably like me that came from inside a severely blood-stained room, and began to chase her. She remembers a hand closing onto her shoulder, and a woman saying something, but she doesn't remember what the words were. That's all she remembers."

Yuu nodded as Rei spoke, and jotted down the notes eagerly, but as he finished wrapping up his notes, he looked to see Rei still looking troubled by something. Though it sounded frightening, there didn't seem to be anything about the dream that should have bothered Rei as badly as it did, as far as he was concerned, but perhaps something about what she had said touched upon a nerve.

"Rei?" he pried, after a moment, voice soft. She looked at him, then sighed.

"Miku was out with a friend, and invited her over to lunch," Rei said, fiddling with the cup between her fingers, watching the way the pads of her fingertips distorted through the glass and liquid. Finally, she lifted one hand from the cup, and pressed it against her forehead. "The girl... she looked like the one in my dream."

Yuu's pen fell to the table with a clatter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh whoops. My finger slipped.


	22. Fire Forged

**Tokyo - Aoyama**

 

Reika shifted in her seat a little, stiffly uncrossing her ankles to re-cross the other direction and tuck back under her chair. Across from her, Sae sat, staring at the half-eaten plate of food, pushing the vegetables around with a fork - not a set of chopsticks, it was a western restaurant, and Sae appeared to prefer using a fork to fit in. If the conversation hadn't just been serious, Reika would've likely been smiling fondly at the scene. It reminded her of when Shigure or Amane didn't want to eat the food placed in front of them. Hisame and Minamo were usually too proud and didn't care enough, respectively, to complain about anything being served.

  
As it was, Reika could only sit and watch, trying to keep her expression neutral as the fork chased around a few errant, rolling peas, trying to corral them up and put them back together.

The silence stretched on.

_Her sister,_ was the recurring thought in Reika's mind. She hadn't really meant to pry that deeply into the other girl's life, but now it was there, hanging heavy and ugly in the air between the two of them. Sae was once a twin, and her sister had died. When her sister had died, Sae started to have vivid, and terrifying nightmares.

Sae didn't go into much more detail than that, but Reika didn't need her to. She knew of the theories around emotions, and dreams, that it was the subconscious projecting images that didn't necessarily mean what was seen in the dream. But she wondered what happened when the dream was recurring. The guilt was obvious, and even without knowing the girl had nightmares, Reika could've told how Sae felt about her sister's death by the way her tone had dropped, her whole body had wilted, the very essence of _it's my fault_ written in every part of her facial expression. Reika herself didn't even know the details, but it was there.

Really, it was quite the depressing conversation to start them off, considering they were hardly acquaintances, let alone friends, but Reika was one of the listening, helpful types. When the words started coming, and then didn't stop, she could hardly have lifted a hand to stop the younger girl; it sounded like something that needed to be talked about for a long time.

Still, it had made things rather awkward, and Reika couldn't think of what else to say. Finally, after a moment, just when it honestly looked like Sae was going to stand up and excuse herself from the table to run away, Reika spoke.

"I don't... know where mine come from," she said, and Sae tensed so tight, for a moment, Reika truly was afraid she was going to spring from her seat like a startled rabbit and bolt for the door. Instead, after a moment, Sae relaxed, and Reika felt slightly more confident in continuing on. "As you can probably tell... I have a disease - a nervous system disease - where my body will occasionally flare up with intense pain, all over. When the pain is at its worst, then they come."

Reika wished her story sounded more heartbreaking, more relevant. That she could really understand Sae's pain, but she couldn't. She had a lover once, who had disappeared after that cold winter, and never returned. It hurt, deep inside, but she couldn't compare it to losing a twin sister.

The silence stretched for a moment, until the discomfort was nearly enough to make something snap, so Reika continued. "I don't know, beyond that, though. I don't even remember when they started. It wasn't always like this..."

Reika looked down at her own plate - she had actually managed to finish eating, unlike Sae, but even still, whatever food was left looked entirely unappetizing anyway. With a sigh, she pushed the plate away to get it away from her so her melancholy mood and the scent of the food didn't make her stomach turn.

"But, I know, they're just that. Nightmares. They don't really exist in this world out here, where we live and are, right?" Reika tried for reassuring, even though she didn't really feel it, but she was the older of the two and had to set a good precedent. "It's not easy to live with, but it's all inside your own mind. No one out here can really know what goes on in your mind, and it shouldn't have to affect things out here."

Sae sighed, and Reika winced, thinking she'd done something wrong, but the girl looked up, finally, and she had a wan smile that was almost painful to see, but, she could also see the genuine attempt to make the smile seem real.

"I... lost family, too," Reika finally mentioned, and felt her internal cringe at admitting to it. No, she hadn't lost a twin, but she had lost family. It still seemed so early to say it, but with Sae having admitted to her sister, Reika felt some sort of obligation to share, as well. "I'm an orphan, technically. When I was young, my family was caught in a terrible avalanche. We lived in a tiny town in the mountains, and it was snowing so badly that night, after a week of relatively warm weather... it was like the whole mountain had fallen down on us." Her throat tightened, and she paused, trying not to go on, even though she could feel the tears welling in her eyes, waiting for her to blink and send them down her cheeks.

"It's..." her voice shook, and inside, she winced again, mentally berating herself. It was certainly something to mourn about, but to do as such in public, with a relative stranger was embarrassing. "It wasn't all bad, though." She sniffed a little, tilting her head back to keep the tears in. "A local shrine took me in after that. I'm actually... heir to it, now. When the current leader decides it's time, I'm going to be the one to take it over." Talking about the future helped to clear her moment of weakness, Reika could already feel her voice steadying. So long as she didn't think about her family again, she wouldn't relapse back to tears. "I have four young girls there that are going to be helping me run it when they get older, so I have to be sure to work hard and be someone they can rely on. But before I do that, I wanted to get out and see the world. That shrine is deep in the mountains, and it's hard to get out of there to go anywhere else."

Reika finally felt able to tilt her head down to look at Sae, and she found the girl looking down at her plate once more. This time, though she was still chasing around peas with her fork, she had a tiny little smile that Reika couldn't help but notice looked far less forced and far more genuine.

"I told you a little about the shrine didn't I? We specialize in spells and charms that help to take away misfortune and pain," Reika continued, realizing she finally had a _real_ 'in' to this conversation. She wasn't so sure why she wanted to talk to the other girl so much -  perhaps due to their similarities - but she knew she needed to continue. "When the girls grow up, they're going to become what we call Engravers. It came from a long time ago when the shrine used to be really rich and popular in the region; they would engrave the incantations on nice, high-quality wood and sell them to the people around. Nobles would come from all around to get one - in fact, I believe we had an emperor request one of our charms once."

"Did something happen to make the shrine less popular?" Sae finally asked, and Reika shook her head.

"Not that I would say. It's out in the country, so as more and more people moved in toward the cities, the old shrines out in the woods and mountains started to slowly decline. Things haven't... become any worse, but they also haven't become any better. It is a little hard, though, because it's a really big shrine. During its peak, they added extra living quarters onto it, so there's a lot to upkeep," Reika said, recounting as much as she could of the numerous times Yashuu would sit her down as a child, attempt to drill boring history lessons into her head, and then quiz her afterward. Really, she only remembered the lessons at the time because she was so terrified of Yashuu and that unimpressed one-eye glower that she felt the need to do well just so she wouldn't have to see it. Unfortunately, it meant the lessons hadn't stuck very well once the danger had passed.

Well, there were always the books around.

"I see," Sae nodded as Reika fell silent, and spoke only after another long, awkward pause. Sae seemed to be split on asking something, then, quietly, spoke. "Is it hard? Being heir to the shrine?"

The question surprised Reika, but, at the same time, she could feel a little, fond smile tug up the corner of her lips. "It's definitely more difficult than if I wasn't afflicted by this disease. But that's just how it is; everything's a little more difficult when I have to take into account how much it might hurt the next day if I overdo things."

Sae nodded. Over the course of the conversation, something had finally loosened up a bit, as though shaking free from some sort of tight binding. The younger girl's eyes shone with a bit more light than they had before. "Um... our town had a shrine, too. Technically."

Reika raised an eyebrow as the conversation looped back on itself a bit, but in a way she hoped came across as 'tell me more', rather than she was questioning anything Sae did.

"We have some old traditions in our towns about twins being..." she swallowed. "Sacred. Holy... um. Deified, really. I mean, we have some of the other gods, too! But it's just... old folklore in the town that because twins were one soul split into two, it made them divine. So the shrine has lots of twin-themed things. And my dad... he helps take care of the shrine, sometimes. There's an old lady that's actually the shrine's main priestess. It's not... it's not like a shrine like yours where we took away pain or anything. It's really just a shrine to Inari, but we use the twin statues instead of foxes."

That was certainly not anything Reika had ever heard of before, and both her eyebrows lifted in surprise. She wondered if some of the bigger shrines to Inari would consider it taboo to have anything other than the foxes predominating the shrine.

Just as Reika was about to ask a question, Sae continued. "I help him, sometimes. My father, I mean. Or I did, with my sister. I don't as much anymore. And it was kind of a small shrine, so I can't say I really had to work really hard at it, but... I guess. I've worked as a miko, too?"

That it took such a roundabout and lengthy explanation to get to that sentence made Reika chuckle a little, under her breath, then immediately feel like apologizing when she saw the look on Sae's face at the laugh. Maybe that wasn't such a good thing to do.

"You say an old lady runs the shrine for the most part, right?" Reika said, trying to keep the conversation flowing smoothly so they didn't have to dwell on Sae's reaction.

The younger girl nodded.

"What's she like? Because the one who runs our shrine at the moment is very strict, and likes to adhere very closely to the rules. She's not entirely unkind, but she can be a little... scary to work with sometimes," Reika continued, then left the silence to linger so Sae could speak.

Sae leaned her head back a little, thinking. "Lady Kureha is... I guess I want to say she's weird."

"Oh?"

"Mmm.... maybe not _weird._ But she has a really... _dark_ sense of humor, and she says things sometimes that make me think she suffered some kind of... really big tragedy in her life," Sae continued, and her head bowed, once more, staring downward and avoiding eye contact. "But it's... like she's constantly mocking that tragedy and herself all at the same time."

"Hmm," Reika said, raising an eyebrow, and looking at Sae, despite the other girl's reluctance to meet her eyes. She wondered if there was something wrong with _her_ if Sae was avoiding looking at her. "Well, Lady Yashuu isn't really anything like that. If I had to say anything, I'd say she doesn't really have a sense of humor at all. She's very straightforward and won't hesitate to punish people for acting in a way she doesn't approve of. But she does care; the shrine wouldn't have taken in as many orphans as it has if she didn't have some kindness to her. You just... have to get used to talking to her."

"I think..." Sae said, and finally looked up. There was a bit of a smile on her face. "I think Lady Kureha just watches too many scary movies. I know she's a really big fan of them. I don't really like scary things very much, but I know that was usually what she was watching when she'd invite us in for tea after helping sweep out front of the shrine."

Reika couldn't help returning the smile. "That might be what gives her that dark sense of humor."

Sae nodded.  "Probably." Finally, she set her fork down, and her little smile turned sheepish. "Also I guess I'm done eating."

Reika laughed. "We'll have to talk again. It was nice getting to know you better, Sae."

"Yeah!" the word was earnest enough that Reika laughed again. Sae continued, without pause, "it's... it's been nice. I forgot how nice it can be to meet new people."

Reika bowed her head a little. "Well, I'm honored you let me talk to you about these things."

"Well, you did offer. And I know you have stuff you probably could use to... talk about. Just to get it out of your head," Sae replied, then nodded.

Reika nodded in agreement. Yes, she had made a new friend, out here in the city already. That was easy enough, she supposed.

* * *

 

When she arrived back at her apartment, Reika bathed and prepared to go to bed, but stopped when she looked around the small one-bedroom space. She had ordered a second ofuda against the bad dreams when she had Sae's made. Now, she wasn't sure if it was her medication, or what, but as she stared at where she'd hung the talisman above the door, she could almost swear it was split in half.

Standing up, Reika made her way over, closing her eyes against the creeping darkness at the edges of her vision - part of the sleep medication that helped her at night - and when she opened them, the ofuda was there, intact.

Chocking it up to nothing more than a sleepy, drug-addled hallucination, Reika sat back down on her bed, turning the light off with the little switch right next to her pillow, and settled in, facing the door, curious. From this distance, it looked it again - the ofuda was split in half, as though something had sliced right through it, but the two halves merely remained separated where whatever it was had cut through, and the bottom half had not fallen down, despite all logic saying it should have.

Reika turned her back to the ofuda, then, and a cold sensation began to prickle at the back of her neck. It was too late to stop anything, however, as the medication totally took its toll, pulling her into the realm of dreams. Her last thought, before she slept, was that the pain wasn't that bad tonight, so why did it feel like there was a nightmare looming?


	23. The Plan

**Tokyo Suburbs - Kei Amakura's House**

Mio couldn't sleep. Again. Which was frustrating enough on its own, but on a school morning - a Tuesday at that, right in the middle of the week where she wouldn't have the opportunity to  catch up on her sleep any time soon - it made it worse.

Mayu moved, every once in a while, on her side of the room. The tossing and turning sounded restless, but though Mio had called out a few times, Mayu had not responded, and the movements had enough time between them that Mio wasn't too worried that her sister was having too many problems. Perhaps a little restlessness in her sleep, or maybe her knee was bothering her.

Finally sighing, she stood up, and resigned herself to going to get some water from the kitchen or... _something_ to quell the restless urge to no longer lay in bed. However, as she stepped out, she realized Kei was sitting at the kitchen table already, sipping some coffee in the gray pre-dawn hours, and pouring over his notes. For a moment, she wondered if he had slept at all.

"Uncle Kei...?" She called, quietly, just to alert him to her presence, as he had obviously not seen or heard her come out of her room. He jerked, and looked at her with dark-rimmed eyes that confirmed her secondary suspicions about his sleeping habits the night before. "Is there something the matter?"

He smiled at her, then shook his head. "No, not at all Mio. Just looking over some research notes."

She took a step forward, in trepidation, but then more boldly strode over to look over the notes. Or at least what she could see from the side-view she got of them. Kei muttered a weak 'Hey!' of protest, but she was far too curious as to what could have kept him up all night.

It was about nightmares, and different dreams. She wasn't sure who was having the dreams, but just reading about it settled something cold in her gut. She glanced up to Kei and tried to smile, but it came out weak at best.

"So is this about those dreams or whatever they're having you research now for work?" Mio asked, and Kei nodded, motioning to the collections of papers.

"I just wish your sister was able to recall what she dreamed about that night," Kei said, sighing. "We know... that at least four different people dreamed of something on the same night. The accounts are all different, but there are similar elements. What's more, is that the people have never met each other - at least I'm assuming you've never met Mafuyu's sister, Miku? Or Yuu's cousin, Misaki?"

Mio shook her head. "Never."

Kei nodded, then rubbed at his chin, thoughtfully. There were so many strings in this, and it was hard to weave the mystery's tapestry together. Several people - all women, he had noted - having dreams of people dying or... perhaps already dead, the feeling of being grabbed, and someone, a woman's voice speaking, but not being able to identify the speaker.

It was frustrating, but at the same time, a challenge he rather looked forward to trying to resolve. It was probably nothing, but this could have been one of the great supernatural breaks of the year.

Kei rubbed his eyes, yawned, and drained the last of his coffee. It wasn't doing a very good job of keeping him awake anymore, he realized.

"Well, anyway," He continued as the mug clunked lightly on the table. "Yuu had a great revelation recently about the whole thing, and I've been working all night trying to put together all the pieces. It's not going exactly easily."

"Ah," Mio said, and leaned back over the table to examine the sheets of notes and other little bits and pieces all over, trying to see if she could figure out where in his thought process he was. Unfortunately, it was a bit too jumbled, and there was far too much information sitting before him.

Kei joined her, until a soft, "Um..." broke his train of thought again, and he turned toward Mio, but she looked lost in thought, staring at his notes.

"Should I..." she began, then trailed off as her eyes caught onto something to read for a moment. "... Should I ask Mayu again? She's... still not sleeping well. She might remember something if she has the dream again, too."

Kei sighed. "I understand that nightmares are very... touchy subjects. So I don't want to cause her any undue stress, Mio. If she says she can't remember everything, then I'm not going to force her, because I don't want to worry her or hurt her. No one likes having nightmares, and I bet they like having to remember and relive them even less."

The researcher turned to his notes once more, eyes darting from paper to paper as he followed his own logic.

"... _But,_ " he said after a moment, and Mio jumped. "I think... if you want to try to convince your sister of something... I'm going to pitch an idea around the office."

"And what's that?" Mio asked, blinking up at her uncle.

* * *

 

**Tokyo - Junsei Takamine's Office**

"You want them all to meet up?" It was a little more incredulous than Kei was used to hearing from Yuu, but he couldn't blame his coworker. It seemed kind of crazy, actually, but maybe it was for the best.

"Yes," Kei nodded, and set down an elaborate looking web of connections he had made somewhere between seven and eight am of a day he hadn't slept anyway. Perhaps in his sleepless, addled mindset, he wasn't thinking very clearly, but it had seemed like the logical conclusion at the time, and it still felt like the right thing to do, several hours later.

"I don't know," Yuu continued. "I mean... it took a while for Rei to get the information out of Miku, and they know each other."

Kei nodded. "I know. And I agree. It's going to be _very_ hard to convince Mayu to break out of her shell a little and talk so intimately with some new people, for instance, but I already have Mio working on it. I just... think an informal setting, with all of us getting together... maybe they can talk it out."

"Or they can get too nervous to speak about it and form some sort of one-sided pact to not... speak at all," Yuu said, and that pained smile of his returned.

Mafuyu, from the other side of the room, finally chimed in, "Didn't Rei say something about Miku's friend looking familiar?"

Yuu nodded. "She thinks she looked a bit like the girl she saw in her dream."

Kei blanched. "The one that was all tied up?"

"Yes," Yuu replied, and then looked down at his notebook, before picking up a pen and jotting a few things down.

"I don't know," Mafuyu said. "I suppose one meeting between all of them can't hurt _too_ much, but I don't think we should go into it expecting them all to instantly become good enough friends to start talking about such personal things as really bad dreams. This is something that's going to take time - if it happens at all. I know Miku has a really hard time meeting new people, and it sounds like Mayu is the same. What's more, we have this unknown variable in that Rei thinks she recognizes Kirie."

"We could invite her, too?" Kei tried, and heard Yuu chuckle a sigh out of his line of sight.

"Why don't we just invite everyone out for a dinner, then?" Mafuyu asked, wryly. "We can get Misaki and her older sister, as well."

This time, Yuu's laugh was more genuine. "Miss Haibara is a very kind woman, but you all... _saw_ her at that dinner a few months ago."

Mafuyu mumbled something to himself, and took to his own notepad to jot down further notes.

"If we do this, let's just start small," Yuu offered. "Maybe one of us can go and sit with Miku and Rei and Mayu?"

"Well... I guess. If Mio can come, too, I won't need to go," Kei said. "Mayu's always more relaxed around her sister, and Mio's the more personable of the two, so at least there'd be some kind of conversation."

"Rei doesn't need me," Yuu shrugged. "She's probably handling things the best out of everyone."

Then, both men looked to Mafuyu. His sister, not older and better grounded like Rei, nor having a crutch of a twin to lean on, left him as the odd one out. He smiled, and bowed his head with a soft laugh.

"Can't Rei take my notes for me?" he asked, and all three chuckled.


	24. Bridge: Himuro

**Tokyo - Kirie Himuro's Dorm**

Kirie sighed as she absently rolled her pen between her fingers, staring at the sheet of homework laying on her desk, but unable to really concentrate on what she was _supposed_ to have been doing, and was supposed to have finished an hour and a half ago, so she could be out of the bath by now and getting ready for bed. Instead, she twiddled with the pen, sat back, looked at her laptop computer, then out the window at the slowly rising moon, and back to where the pen wiggled from side to side, restlessly.

She didn't have many friends, so when Miku asked if she would like to meet up with one of hers, Kirie was excited. After all, it seemed like Miku had about as hard of a time socializing as she did, and they had similar enough tastes that perhaps one of Miku's friends would be likeminded enough to be one of hers as well. Kirie hadn't quite banked on the woman being a few years older than them both, in college, with a fiancee, and a steady job, and so very... _adult._ It didn't mean that the woman - Rei, and Kirie forced herself to remember the woman's name because forgetting it was rude - was unapproachable, and, quite the opposite, it seemed Rei was very kind and friendly.

It was just... a little bit of a surprise; after all, Miku was still a high school student. It was even more of a surprise to hear the conversation turn toward the strange nightmares that Rei and Miku had apparently experienced on the same night. Kirie hadn't prodded, and in fact, had fallen too into her own thoughts to speak up the idea that _she_ had weird nightmares, too. Instead, she listened as Rei gently persuaded Miku to speak about them, and seemed to be mentally noting all of the details that Miku was recounting. Except... Kirie got a strange feeling, because Rei kept looking back at her, studying her, and paling a little all at once, before her attention trained again on Miku.

Then again, Kirie thought, remembering back to it, Miku always had seemed rather mature for her age. It was probably because she had seen more things than her peers. More... _life altering_ things, though Kirie knew that the 'ghosts' barely scratched the surface, with the way Miku got very, very distant when speaking about her parents.

Speaking of her friend, Kirie glanced over to her phone, then back out the window toward the moon. It was late enough at night that it was probably borderline rude to call someone, but at the same time, she wasn't getting any work done, and the urge suddenly struck her that she needed to talk about... her dreams.

Before she could even double-check against her manners, she was listening to the electronic ringing tone of another phone from her own. After a couple rings, she began to feel bad, and was just about to hang up before the voice mail could answer, when a somewhat out-of-breath sounding Miku answered.

"H-hello? This is Miku."

"Oh, sorry, did I wake you up? It's Kirie," Kirie asked, suddenly, and the feeling of guilt grew in the pit of her stomach.

She could hear something rustle on the other end, and realized it was probably Miku shaking her head. "No. Not at all. I just left my phone in here while I was in the other room. I heard it ringing, and I thought I was going to be too late."

"I see. Well, I'm really sorry for bothering you, Miku. I know it's late," Kirie began, but before she could get too into the apologies, Miku interrupted her, and prompted her to continue.

"Well, I wanted to call and ask..." Kirie paused, hesitating, and swallowed thickly twice before she could go on. "Miss Rei... that person we were both talking to the other day. She said she had bad dreams, right, and you said you've had them, too?"

Kirie swallowed against a knot of nervous anticipation in her throat as silence stretched between the two of them. Finally, Miku spoke.

"Yes," and that was all she said, one, quiet word that made Kirie reconsider ever having brought the subject up.

However, she also knew, she had to continue on with this, she had to keep going. She had to, because not doing as such would be worse.

"I get... they're not dreams, really. Or I guess they are, but I know they're happening, unlike dreams, I feel awake," Kirie continued. "It's sleep paralysis, I think, but all the research I've done for it... it isn't quite the same." She swallowed, and there was a brief moment of silence, before she continued, knowing Miku was waiting for her. "I'll be laying in bed, just falling asleep or waking up, and suddenly, I'll start hearing things, or get a feeling like there's someone else in my room with me. The scariest things happen, though, when it feels like someone's tied down my arms and legs... and my neck. I swear I can feel... _ropes_ or something biting into my skin, and I hear chanting in the background, like some kind of weird ritual is happening. I can't see anyone, though, but it feels like I'm surrounded somehow."

She heard Miku gasp on the other line. "Oh... I'm sorry, Kirie, that sounds awful."

"It's... scary, but it happens so often that I've almost gotten used to it," she gave an uneasy giggle at the end of her sentence, then shook her head. "I wish I could move, but I can't, so I've never been able to do anything but stare at the ceiling or the wall - whatever I was looking at before I fell asleep."

There was a sort of uneasy pause on Miku's end, before she spoke up. "Thank you for calling me to talk about this, though, Kirie. Do you want... me to pass that information along to Rei? Or, I guess I should ask if you want to have lunch with her again so you can tell her yourself? I'm sure she'd want the firsthand account of what happened instead of just what I have to say."

Kirie thought about it for a moment, pursing her lips. Yes, it had been Rei that had prompted her to want to tell Miku, but did she want to tell the stranger about what it was like for her? Well, it seemed like there was a larger investigation going on, and the fact that so many people had the same kinds of dreams just sounded too... weird to be coincidence, even though Kirie could never begin to guess what it could be as a cause. A puff of breath against the receiver on the other end brought Kirie back into her thoughts.

"Let's speak to her again at lunch," Kirie began, quietly, then added, "and somewhere quiet."

Miku made a sound of agreement from the other end of the line, and a long pause followed. Kirie shuffled in her seat, then tried to continue the conversation, steering it away from bad dreams, and thoughts of the dead, toward something more interesting. Unfortunately, they could only speak about school briefly, and a few new rumors buzzing about, before the conversation died entirely, and Kirie hung up.

Once again, the young Himuro looked at her laptop, at the open program and math practice problems displayed on the screen, and she scanned the numbers for a while until they all became a jumble, and she snapped the lid back down, leaning back until she stared at the ceiling.

Everything just felt so... wrong. So different and difficult. At the same time, Kirie got the creeping feeling that things were about to become worse soon. She had no idea what had prompted the feeling, but it was like... a premonition.

Before the next year, she thought, something was going to be very, very different.

The urge to speak to Miku again rose, but she quashed it. They were both avoiding stepping on each others' toes, she knew. It was going to probably be that way for a while, and she didn't want it to get worse, right before she felt like something was about to happen.

... They'd need all the help they could get.

* * *

 

 A phone call came for Kirie a week later. She spoke to Miku off and on as they rode the train to their respective schools, but they didn't try to speak outside of that time. For a couple days, Kirie wondered if she was going to have to watch her... really only friend drift away from her.

Kirie didn't recognize the number, but as she picked up, she was greeted by someone from Junsei Takamine's office, cordially inviting her to a dinner the following weekend, if she did not have plans. She almost declined the invitation, but then remembered the boy, Mafuyu, Miku's brother, and paused. Upon asking, she was informed that yes, indeed, he would be attending the dinner, as well.

Shortly after the phone call, she received a text from Miku, inquiring about the same, and she felt her breath catch in her throat, a strange sense of foreboding suddenly creeping into her senses.

Was this going to be the thing, then? That which would set her... no, perhaps set a lot of people down a path which they could never come back from?

Kirie didn't respond to Miku's inquiry immediately, instead slipping her phone back into her pocket, and spent a long while just staring at her bed, thinking. Something felt wrong... and yet, at the same time, something felt very, very right. She should go, at the very least. If anything, it would satisfy her curiosity, and she had always been a curious child, always wanting to go outside the little cage of the Himuro Mansion and find out exactly what it was in the world.

She wasn't prepared for what she would find, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, motherfucker.
> 
> Heart eyes, motherfucker.
> 
> Rue dies, motherfucker.
> 
> All rise, motherfucker.
> 
> "This chapter's short, motherfucker"
> 
> I know. Would y'all believe I have like ten more of these written, I just haven't updated with them yet?
> 
> Stick around - I'll have more up soon.
> 
> Including another of my favorite scenes. It involves Sakuya. SURPRISE.


	25. Dinner 2

**Tokyo - Restaurant**

The air almost hummed with the awkward undertone of the group. Rei looked from face to face at the small gathering, and she found a lot of shifting gazes, a lot of meeting eyes, then glancing away. Something in the air between everyone seemed so... strained, as well, though she couldn't pinpoint what the cause was. It was almost the same kind of tense atmosphere that had been around when Misaki and Sakuya had arrived at the celebratory dinner a few months ago, Rei realized. Like there was something... buzzing in the back of people's minds. Like a grating sound that one couldn't pinpoint the location of.

The problem was, she couldn't figure out the cause, or even begin to think of possible solutions to the problem at the moment. But it was strange, watching the undercurrent almost... _move._ It seemed like it would hit Miku and her brother, then Mayu, then it would disperse out to Kirie, back to the other side of the table to grab herself or Mio, and then over to the other new girl Rei had just met, Sae.

The second time meeting Kirie made it a little easier, though the closer Rei observed the girl, the more she realized she really did look just like the young woman she had seen in her dreams. This time, however, Rei was prepared for the uncanny likeness, and even had questions that she wanted to ask her. What it didn't save was how uncomfortable everyone seemed; and to think, Yuu spoke of wanting to bring Sakuya and Misaki into something like this...

As one of the eldest of the group, Rei found it up to her to bring up the topics, though the support she occasionally looked for in Mafuyu was rarely forthcoming. There seemed to be... _something_ there between himself, Miku, and Kirie, especially, and Rei couldn't exactly pinpoint the problem. Still, it was stunting his attempts at driving any force of conversation, and so it seemed it was only up to Rei to move things forward.

Dinner was eaten in relative silence, and even the rest of the restaurant seemed to notice that the large group was unusually quiet; more than once Rei caught some of the other patrons, and even staff members glancing their direction, as though waiting for some kind of conversation to pop up that rarely ever did. Once the food was comfortably tucked away, and Rei realized she wasn't going to be getting much help, she sighed and cleared her throat to get everyone's attention.

"Takamine asked us all to be here today because of a strange... I want to say coincidence, but the more I heard about it from Yuu, the more I realized there might be something purposeful happening here," she paused, taking in the way she had everyone's attention - even those among the group like Mayu and Sae who seemed to have spent the evening preferring the view of the table and their plates of food rather than the other people. "I agreed to come here today because, from what I understand, everyone here has been having very specific nightmares." That was what she was waiting for, as she could see a few of the gazes shift away from her. Sae and Mayu, of course, Miku quickly thereafter, Kirie last, after glancing at Mafuyu.

Continuing, Rei slowly felt her hands clasp against each other under the table. The nervous tension must have been getting to her more than she thought, at first. "I think... we should talk about and document these things as often as possible. If this is... something like what Takamine thinks it may be - that it's a supernatural occurrence, then it's worth it to keep it documented. And even if it's not..." She paused, trying to think of a good way to phrase the next part. "Then we can at least have a support network of people who can understand what we're going through... and we can talk about things."

The eyes continued to not look at her. Rei frowned as she felt the opportunity of this plan began to slip away from her, when Sae looked up from across the table, and took a moment to study her face. For a second, Rei thought Sae must have been staring right into her eyes, until she realized that the look was just slightly too low, and Sae must have been looking at the beauty mark under her eye.  The gaze lingered for just long enough that Rei realized it had derailed her train of thought from the previous small speech she had been giving, and she blinked.

"... Is something the matter?" And she almost said 'Miss Kurosawa', but paused on that. Not the time for a pun.

"It's just..." Sae began, after a moment of not speaking, and then she burst out into a round of nervous giggles that lasted for several seconds longer than Rei would have thought... or liked. "I know someone that looks kind of like you - you could almost be sisters. Right down to the beauty mark."

The frown that had worked its way across Rei's features disappeared as she regarded the younger girl, spread out into surprise. She was about to mention something about no, she might even be more closely related to Sae if their last names were any indication, but paused when she had a thought. The night of the engagement party with the Asou family, and that young woman entering a bus across the street that had caught her and Misaki's attention so fully. The girl had looked so like Rei, with longer hair.

"I mean... her name's even 'Reika'," Sae continued, and Rei was brought back out of the memory. "... I mean, it's Reika _Kuze,_ but not...-"

"Not to interrupt, but does she have long hair, Sae?" Rei asked, leaning forward a bit, her hands moving from their spot in her lap to the table, and she saw Mafuyu lean forward subtly, as well.

"Y-yeah..." Sae mumbled, shifting her gaze away from Rei and back toward the table, her moment of bravado interrupted by the realization she was the center of attention. "Have you met her before?"

"No," Rei said, gripping the table suddenly, looking over to Kirie, to Miku who looked surprised in her own way, and then back to Sae. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mafuyu begin jotting down some notes, with a start, as though he'd forgotten he was supposed to be taking them. "But I think I would like to."

Sae nodded, but didn't say anything, her nerves taking over, and Rei made a mental note to ask the girl about this 'Reika' person later - when it wouldn't make the poor girl look about ready to try to crawl under the table.

"... Back on topic from before..." She paused, trying to remember exactly where she had left off. Something about talking about their nightmares - ah, right, the support group. "If anyone wants to exchange phone numbers, then I'd be more than happy to." A shift, and Rei brought her phone out of her pocket, pressing the button to illuminate the screen. "I know I have contact already with the Hinasakis..." She motioned at Mafuyu and Miku, who both nodded, in turn, then looked directly at Kirie. "If I may, I am... very interested in speaking to you about things."

Kirie looked a little taken aback, cheeks darkening as she was singled out. "Are you... sure...?"

Rei nodded, firmly. "Because you look so much like the figure in my dreams... I'm really interested in maybe speaking to you if I have a dream... and maybe we can compare notes to what we had been doing when the nightmares struck? Or if we were having similar ones?"

Kirie shifted, uncomfortably - not quite the fidget of Sae from a moment ago, but still obviously flustered by the idea. Rei was about to apologize, and perhaps offer to talk to her about it in private, and add to the list of people she would need to talk to as an aside, before Kirie nodded, pulling out her own phone.

That moment seemed to prompt a sudden flurry of realization from the other people at the table, and before long, numbers had been exchanged between the people whom had not exchanged their numbers before, and the atmosphere of the dinner relaxed. It wasn't until the restaurant was almost closed before the group dissipated, and Rei caught Sae's attention, pulling her to the side as the group dispersed into smaller groups and began to head toward their homes. Mio and Mayu offered to walk Sae back to the station, but due to the late hour and not wanting Sae to have to walk even the short distance back to her dorm from the train, Rei mentioned it wouldn't be a problem for her to drive Sae back to her dormitory, even if it was a bit out of the way. Unsure but accepting, the twins said their goodbyes, and Rei was left alone with Sae.

The first part of the ride back to the dorm was filled with an awkward quiet, only the muted background music from the car radio and the rev of the engine and rumbling of the car tires on pavement kept the atmosphere from complete silence. Rei was never truly sure how to start conversations with people like Sae; she'd always been a sort of outgoing person, and got along with others easily, but in this case, she wasn't even sure if Sae _wanted_ to get along with her in return.

So it took her by surprise when the younger girl spoke from the passenger seat, looking back over to the side and studying the profile of Rei's face intently. "Reika... she's... a priestess from a shrine up in the mountains."

Rei made a soft, "Hm?" as Sae spoke, prompting her to continue onward.

"The Kuze Shrine... it's really deep in the mountains, from what I can tell... w-when I looked it up," Sae turned back forward, no longer studying Rei's face, but instead watching the road ahead of them as they slowly wound their way through the emptying city streets. The drive was peaceful, and it must have put Sae at ease, Rei thought.

"So... I wonder, do you have any relatives from more rural parts, Rei?"

Rei stayed quiet for a moment, thinking over what she knew of her family. Kurosawa was a surprisingly common last name - if the fact Sae and her shared it was any indication - so figuring out if there was a branch of her family that lived up there just by looking up the name would be moot... but...

"Not that I'm aware of, unfortunately," She finally shook her head, slowing the car to a stop at a red light, and looked over at her passenger. Sae seemed to have, at some point, looked back down to her hands on her legs, and was staring there intently.

"... Well, do you want me to give her your number or...?" The younger girl asked, without glancing over at Rei.

Rei thought about it, then looked back up just as the light turned green again. "I think... if you feel like you should. Miku had a dream not long ago; she said that, in this dream, she was being chased around by someone who looked remarkably like myself, but with longer hair." Sae gasped, but Rei continued. "Though she said the woman was covered in bruises or... some kind of blue and purple markings."

Sae frowned, then shook her head. "No, Reika doesn't look like she's got bruises-" Then paused. "... Oh, but she has some kind of problem walking... it's not like Mayu and her bad knee. It's more like her whole body hurts sometimes."

Rei gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. If the bruises were a metaphor, dreamed up within the mind, then...

"... I see. Yes, I am actually more curious than ever to meet her. If... if you don't think it would be too much of a bother, could you give her both Yuu and my numbers, and tell her to call us at her earliest convenience?"

Sae blinked, then nodded. "Yeah... I'll.... get in touch with her soon. I just was talking to her not long ago, but I think I can get her to come with me again."

"Mr. Takamine may want to speak to her regarding this, as well..." Rei frowned. "... And then..." Misaki and Sakuya. Yuu had called Misaki recently, wanting to talk to Sakuya...

... There were far more of them than Rei had first thought. Somehow, it felt like destiny that they be connected. The rest of the trip was made with only a few more words of smalltalk before Rei bid the younger girl goodnight before the multi-story dormitory she was staying at.

Rei arrived back to her apartment late - Yuu was not only already home, but fast asleep, and she had to quietly sneak into bed to avoid waking him.

It wasn't quite a nightmare, but the dream Rei had that night involved staring into a mirror, as someone that was and wasn't her looked back at her, while an ugly purple-blue bruise writhed and spread like something living across her skin, leaving her whole body sore and aching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go! Kind of a twofer.


End file.
